You Believe In Visions And Prayers
by internetboy
Summary: Edlynn, eldest daughter of House Stark, has been vehemently against marriage and its principles. When Jaime Lannister comes into the picture, nothing about her has been swayed. Eventually, she finds a new way of life. Brief Jaime/OC; OC-centric, mildly AU.
1. Chapter 1

Life was perpetually continuing, and what was important to her in that moment may very well be totally unimportant to her later on. And though everything eventually passes, except in that very moment, and in the next second, they were in another moment, and something else happened and everything else is gone, is past. But some of the memories, some of the passions and loves of life, they never really go away. Edlynn, of course, knew these things very well– she had not lived through as much as many men had, through many years and many conflicts, millions of fleeting moments and small intrinsic details that had come and passed, and, if she were to be who she truly was and if she were to be very true to herself, there was a very small part that said there was no good point in reminiscing over the thought of marriage to some man whose mere presence she would abhor so very much. Whomever her father decided to match her with in the name of alliances, there was little plausibility in the idea she would ever grow to love a man, no matter who he was, or even care for him in the slightest. If the man was anything as the Prince was, there was no doubt in her mind that, unlike Sansa, she would not go gooey-eyed at the very sight of a boy who, no matter how handsome she may find him, was hideous on the inside.

Edlynn, from her yonder days of youth, had been told that marriage _should_ be about love, not that it was. Much like battle, marriage was seen by her as a war between thinly-veiled masculine despotism and feminine egoist resistance as to not fall for the male tricks. Of course, this entire war would be one-sided– she had lived with Theon long enough that she believed men to be the most simplistic of creatures, while femininity, a juxtaposition, had every word beholding underlying meaning, underlying need to redress false dualisms as a result of denigration of one oppositional by another. Thus, there is the constant fight between man and woman in marriage– one could call it, perhaps, because of the universal demands made by social norms, becoming an exception seemed to be both a task and constantly in need of justification, something Edlynn Stark was wholly unwilling to delve into. The tortuous dialectic of universal and exception, worked out in terms of the sacrifices of love, significantly outweighed any willingness Edlynn was to put into marriage, and, decidedly, told her father if she were to marry any man, whether it be of any family of power, she would blatantly refuse. And, if her demands for maidenhood were not met, she would be the most unhappy bride in all of Westeros, and if she were not to keep her maidenhood the night of the wedding, she would be forced to remove her husband's own, possibly with her teeth. Eddard had laughed heartily for some time over her words, even forcing himself to wipe away the tears of mirth that had formed in his eyes, but Edlynn was very much serious, to the point that, upon hearing her father make arrangements with the Frey's for her hand to be given to Malwyn, a son of Raymund who was working as an alchemist's apprentice in Lys, tracked down her half-brother in efforts to convince him that she was all too willing to leave for the Wall with him.

Not only so, but that she had given him a long, wordy speech Jon almost fell asleep to about the paradigm of love in marriage as a trope for the universal claims of civic duty and that the face-value validity of marriage, an ethical love, could never be joined together with the aesthetic love. Love in marriage does not exclude sensual enjoyment and love of beauty as such, but only the selfishness of lust for the flesh, which, in her outlandishly spoken theory, resulted in the creation of half of the population of bastard children– not intentionally offending Jon, of course– because, within marriage where attraction is not necessary for the bond to be made, extramarital affairs could never be "uncommon" in their society, where marriages are made on the basis of power. The other half, she did not mention to Jon in fear he would grow bothered by her words; but, because she knew very much (or, at least, she believed she did) in the realm of marriage, she thought the other half to be because of women like her, women and men who did not have marriage as an option or in their sights, leading to this aesthetic love, leading to an erotic attachment and, eventually, a child borne out of wedlock– a bastard. And this was how the world worked, and that was why Edlynn did not wish to be a part of it any longer. Jon had already planned to leave for the Wall as soon as possible, and prohibited his younger sister of even contemplating leaving with him. He, forever languishing in the loss of who he could have been if his last name were different, had thought long and hard about his decision in leaving, unlike the rare irrational thoughts of Edlynn. He believed that, under the Night's Watch, the circumstances of his birth would be of little importance; under the suggestion of their Uncle Benjen, Jon decidedly chose that the Night's Watch would be the positive fruits to become of his labour.

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that marked the ending of summer. It also felt like the beginnings of wintertime because, when she had awoke, the sun did not filter through the heavy, dusty curtains in her chamber she never drew closed like it always did; rather, a dull sheen of light strained to illuminate her room. She threw off her blanket, a large white thing made of wool, a tiny bit itchy but warm, and wrapped it informally around her shoulders as a cloak would, tip-toeing off into other room to find clothes for the day. Robb had told her in confidence the night before that they were to take off early at dawn to take Bran out for his first experience as a man, to witness a beheading and ride home; however, Catelyn had objected strongly to Arya and Edlynn's requests on attending such a repulsive event, and forced them to attend to their everyday routines– of course, this differed from sister to sister, as Sansa would be attached at Septa Mordane's hip for the remainder of the day, as per usual, while the eldest and youngest would be playing out in the woods, or taking a trip out to the stables. _However,_ Catelyn admonished, she would allow this commonplace event to happen, if Edlynn would admonish in return her… Activities, during the afternoon, and attend a lesson with the Septa. The rest of the day, her mother said, her daughters could go out and roll in the pig pens for all she cared; given, she did love her two rambunctious daughters for all they were worth, this so-called negative influence Catelyn believed Edlynn had on Arya was one she would allow, if not reluctantly, and she always tended to make an effort towards getting Edlynn to do more girlish things in some hope Arya would follow suit.

Thus, as she had already promised one thing to her mother, she grabbed rather some tunics and a skirt and headed for the bath, awaiting her handmaiden for a long, long bath– the day was going to be far too _long_ for her liking.

While sat in the bath, she thought of the dream she had been awoken from: it had been an unusual experience, that was why she forced herself to remember it very well, as though her bodily autonomy had been stolen by an unseen force that she could never comprehend and used for their own gain. She stood, though it felt like she was floating, in the middle of a field. It did not look at all like that of Winterfell, nor did it feel like it, for even as she stood in the field with only a twisted weirwood tree, wearing only a thin cotton slip, did she feel none of the biting winds that made the North so frigid. Instead, there was orange sunlight flooding over her, drawing strange shadows from the tree's contorted branches, warmth spreading into her skin. The breeze rustled the scarlet leaves overhead, and that was the only noise around, but, when she looked down at herself, there was a small babe in her arms, softly cooing in wonderment. Their eyes twinkled and Edlynn subconsciously ran her thumb over the babe's cheek, watching at they reached for her thumb to wrap their tiny fist around it.

And for the longest time, that was all the dream really was, of her simply standing underneath the twisting weirwood tree, holding a babe to her bosom and letting the time slink by, until the sun had finally begun to set and Edlynn had picked up her sleeping babe to her breast and began walking towards a large castle sat upon a rock, which, under the shadow which dusk lit upon it, gave the appearance of a lion in repose. She did not see much as she began walking to the rock, but rather, a series of images flashed before her eyes: a very small boy grinning toothily as figs blurred in his hands, eyes as green as sage laughing into hers. _Catch,_ he says, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the rock. The thick warmth of sleepy breath against her ear. _If you have to go, I will go with you._ Her fears forgotten in the golden harbour of an oddly familiar grasp.

And at that point was when she awoke. Edlynn stayed in the bath until her fingers pruned, threw on the clothes, and read while her handmaiden brushed her hair and anointed her with various perfumes, and spoke of what duties she had to attend to in her day, the only ones being to check the greenhouse, attend her lessons with the Septa and perhaps Maester Luwin if she so wished, and to ensure that she and Arya, if they were to venture into the godswood or beyond, to return by dusk.

After a while, when her hair had been brushed out to the point it seemed to be somewhat tameable, she was informed by the handmaiden earnestly that Eddard and the boys had returned from their venture to the beheading, with an undoubtedly traumatised Bran, and that Edlynn was to meet them inside the Great Hall. Of course, she did so.

There, where their father and all her siblings stood, were a collection of pups, one for each sibling, and while each of them cradled their own dog, Edlynn spotted a very small, but very loud pup, yipping delightfully as it smelled a new presence, for it, like the rest of them, was blind; nearly all white, with patches of grey fur on its head and stomach, the bitch nuzzled into her bosom as soon as Edlynn had picked it up, scratching the scruff of her neck delightfully. Jon, seeing her enter, gave a small, rare grin, holding an albino pup of his own.

"We found them on our return from the beheading– direwolves haven't been seen south of the Wall in some hundred years, can you imagine? And I see the one has taken a liking to you."

"How will we feed them?" She asked quietly, cradling the pup as one would a babe.

"Well, Robb has decided the best way would be to soak a cloth in milk and let it suckle at it, like a teat." Edlynn nodded, but did not say anything further for a brief moment.

"… How is Bran doing?"

"Fine, I would assume. At least, he seemed to be. He did not say very much on the ride back."

"As fine as a Stark can be, I suppose."

Jon didn't smile at that, though.

* * *

She had only gotten word that, halfway through a mirthful sparring session with Arya, wooden swords and all, the royal family was to be making an appearance later in the day, and that they would be staying for an uncertain number of days, as word from her father reached her and her sister. The family, promptly, had left to meet the Baratheon-Lannister clan at the front gate, and, according to Eddard, there would more than likely be a large feast in their honour, though he confided he was very unsure as to how exactly he would be feeding all of the people they would be bringing. _As your mother told me, girls– do try to hold your tongue. At least, until you're alone._ He had ruffled their hair, and brought them with the rest of the family to meet the royals.

The visitors poured through the castle gates in a river of gilded shades, from gold to silver, bronze and gilded steel, vast amounts of bannermen, knights, sworn soldiers, and freeriders. Edlynn did not know who most of the riders were, but she could recognise a few of them by tall tales alone. Ser Jaime Lannister, his hair spun from gold, and Sandor Clegane, the Hound, with his half-burnt face; the Queen, Cersei Lannister, with her three children, as fair as the last, whom Eddard had kneeled in the snow for to kiss her ring. She felt some eyes linger on her, but Edlynn didn't acknowledge anything, much too preoccupied in the wonderment of staring off at all of the newcomers.

Standing far off in the slightly gleam of the sunlight, stood the eldest Stark girl, hardly any more than five-and-ten, who seemed to be much too lanky for her age, looking almost like a wight when the thinness combined with her height, clutching earnestly onto a hand-whittled applecore doll in one hand and a wooden play-sword in the other. The smaller girl, Arya, gripped tightly at the elder's legs, staring up at the strange foreigners with some brand of fascination; Edlynn, as she was introduced as, wore many layers of neutral-coloured tunics atop one another and a threadbare woolen black skirt that seemed to be awfully short, revealing her slim ankles, scuffed leather shoes, and sagging socks. She was a very pretty but rather unchaste girl; wide, sunken grey circles for eyes glimmered with something indecipherable to him, with black-slash eyebrows that only just peeked out from underneath loose baby hairs. Her overgrown, frizzy tendrils illuminated the same shade of brown-black as her father, loose ringlets billowing with every shallow inhale and exhale. He admired her for what felt to be a long moment, from her cream-coloured skin, to her soft-featured, thin face, the delicate angles of her defined cheekbones, the high bridge of her rather long nose, the plush cupid's bow of her lips, and her slender figure, all legs, appearing like a young colt who had only just learned how to walk. As soon as she caught him staring at her, Edlynn flushed a soft pink colour, from the tips of her ears to the column of her throat; Jaime briefly smirked and turned his attention back to the King and Eddard, sparing the girl brief glances every so often.

After the formal introductions of either house, the two men, her father and the King, left to the godswood, despite a futile protest from his Queen sister. By the time they returned, Eddard did not look the same, but Edlynn didn't mention it at all, as it was soon the beginning of the feast. The eldest Stark girl, much to her chagrin, was told to be accompanying both Lannister men, as Sansa had already begun clinging to Prince Joffrey's side and Arya, reluctantly, to Prince Tommen, leaving her with the Kingslayer and the Imp.

They were all very handsome folks. Queen Cersei, escorted by Edlynn's lord father, was very beautiful, with her long golden-spun hair, emerald green eyes that glinted the same colour as the jewels of her crown. Following her, King Robert, the portly, apparently drunkard of a man, who was a great disappointment to Edlynn– Eddard had spoke often enough of him to have her paint an image in her mind of this larger-than-life, fierce warrior, but instead, she was greeted with a red-faced man underneath his beard, sweating profusely through his silks. Afterwards came the children, little Rickon first, teetering on her small legs as three-year-olds did, following Robb, handsome as always in his grey wool, with Princess Myrcella on his arm, a very young girl who, by all accounts, seemed to be incredibly insipid, blushing under her flaxen curls at the very sight of Robb, who also seemed to be rather daft in the attention of girls, grinning like a fool. And, of course, followed her sisters escorting the princes, Arya dragging Prince Tommen along, whose hair was longer than hers, and Sansa draped atop Prince Joffrey, twelve and taller than Edlynn, Jon, or Robb. She knew very well that Sansa was already in love with the idea of having a prince fall in love with her, but Edlynn did not like the way he stared condescendingly at Winterfell's Great Hall as they approached it.

Following Sansa and Prince Joffrey was Edlynn, standing daintily in between the Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister, who she had first seen appraising her unabashedly, and the Imp, Tyrion. Jaime was undoubtedly just as handsome as his sister was beautiful, tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife, wearing crimson silk and a satin cloak and leather boots; Tyrion, however, waddling alongside the two taller individuals, was denied all of the beauty awarded to his eldest siblings, half of Jaime's height, with a head that was much too large for his body and mismatched green and black eyes underneath a lank fall of white-blonde hair.

The last to enter Winterfell of the high lords had been their Uncle Benjen Stark of the Night's Watch, and their father's ward, the young Theon Greyjoy, who Edlynn had grown up with most her life. After everyone had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and returned, and the feast began.

There were very few times when, to Edlynn, she wished she herself to be a bastard like Jon, who sat with the younger squires, drinking to his heart's content. In any case, the most occurring periods where she wished only to be an outcast of the family was at feasts such as this.

After a while of listening to the rotten prince speak boredly to her younger sister, her mother had finally saved her; though the King had been drinking heavily, making many a toast, laughing loudly at every jest, attacking each dish like a starving man, conversation between the four was seldom at most. Her father's attention was focused on the courtesies and said little, looking over the hall with hooded eyes and yet seeing nothing, while, like Eddard, Queen Cersei did not say a word, her face as cold and expressionless as an ice sculpture. To break the steady tension, her mother requested Edlynn to let the poor harpist rest and take over a song or two, to impress their guests. Of course, Edlynn was much too grateful for an opportunity to break free from the rather repulsively "romantic" words exchanged around her (as she was sure _romantic_ was the way Sansa would portray it when relaying the information to her friends), and played "A Cask of Ale" to the best of her abilities. Judging by how much of the drink King Robert had downed in the short time of the feast, it was a safe estimation to play such as a song for his amusement.

Though the Great Hall was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh baked bread, Edlynn and the singer put emphasis to be heard even in the end of the hall where Jon sat, where the roar of the fire and the clangor of pewter plates and cups make everything nearly intangible and incomprehensible. After she was finished with the song, her mother and father clapped while Robert laughed heartily at the raised platform where they hosted, raising his large cup up in a humorous cheer while she curtsied and was told to play another, after another, after another.

For the fourth hour of the welcoming feast, much to Edlynn's embarrassment, was filled with small rounds of cheering after each song was played, and after the hour was quite nearly over, the original harpist took his position back. Edlynn scurried with her tail between her legs back to her seat, where the King continued to laugh and Sansa provided her only with a slight glare. Edlynn drank down the summerwine nervously, the sweet fruity taste doing little to calm her sudden nerves, and dearly wished to be with Jon at the other end of the hall, drinking as much as he so chose to and having the more interesting company of the squires and lesser people of the house. With gusto, not much caring for her father's watchful eye, took the flagon as it had been passed about, and filled up her cup to the brim.

She had only then began drinking, and had no reason to stop afterwards.

Edlynn glanced apprehensively at her half-brother across the hall, drinking heavily with the snowy fur of his direwolf pup at his feet, speaking with their Uncle Benjen, and she hated Jon for leaving her with these pretentious people. Prince Joffrey, especially, was hardly even tolerable, with all his words directed at Sansa with only the slightest connotation of interest in their conversation, while Arya and Tommen stayed virtually silent and Myrcella only giggled at any attempts at conversation Robb made. Decisively, after downing three glasses of wine and feeling her face flush as red as the Lannister banners, Edlynn decided it was best to get some air and leave the stuffy room that made her eyes water.

"I must be excused," Edlynn murmured, and just before she could have left, Jon, with great indignity, spat venomous words at their uncle:

"I will never father a bastard. _Never!"_ The entire table fell silent, all eyes focused on Jon and Jon alone. He repeated her same words, spinning around and attempting to bolt out of the Hall, but stumbling as a drunk does. Lurching sideways, Jon knocked the flagon of spiced wine a serving girl carried onto the floor. Laughter ensued and Jon's cheeks became stained with hot tears; Edlynn tried to move forward quickly and help him up, but he wrenched himself from her grip and fled out the door. Edlynn and his direwolf pup followed in a chase out into the night.

The yard was free of the hustling noise in the Great Hall, quiet and empty, the only inhabitant being a lone sentry with his cloak pulled up and around him to protect against the unforgiving cold. There was the faint noise of the music coming from the Hall, but other than the harpist, all she could hear was her own teeth chattering and Jon's heaving breaths. Edlynn watched him wipe away his tears helplessly. After a moment, Jon's direwolf slinked to wrap itself up into his feet and Edlynn tried to hold him once again. This time, he did not bother to resist, even as he furiously rubbed his eyes.

"Boy," a voice called out to them. Jon's head turned.

Tyrion Lannister was sitting on the ledge above the door to the Great Hall, looking in every sense just like a gargoyle. The Imp grinned down at the pair of them. "Is that animal a wolf?"

"A direwolf," Edlynn spoke quietly, smoothing Jon's hair down.

"His name is Ghost." Jon supplied. He stared up at the little man, his episode seemingly forgotten. "What are you doing up there? Why aren't you at the feast?"

"Too hot, too noisy, and I'd drunk too much wine," Tyrion told them. "I learned long ago that it is considerably rude to vomit on your brother. Might I have a closer look at your wolf?"

Jon seemed to hesitate, but Edlynn nodded for him, "Of course, sir. May I fetch you a ladder, or can you come down by yourself?"

"Oh, bleed that," the little man said. With one good push, he flung himself off the ledge, spun around in a tight ball, and landed on his hands, then vaulted backwards onto his legs. Ghost seemed to be just as hesitant as his owner. Tyrion dusted himself off and laughed.

"I believe I've frightened your wolf. My apologies."

"He's not scared," Jon said. "Ghost, come here. Come on. That's it."

The wolf pup padded closer and closer, until it was nuzzled into Jon's hand. He still kept a wary eye at Tyrion, and when the dwarf reached out to pet him, Ghost bared his fangs in a silent snarl.

"Shy, isn't he?"

"Sit, Ghost," Jon commanded. "That's it. Keep still. You can touch him now. He won't move until I tell him to. I've been training with him."

"I see," Tyrion said. He ran his fingers through the snowy fur between Ghost's ears, "Nice wolf."

"If I wasn't here, he'd tear out your throat."

"In that case, you had best stay close," the Imp said. He cocked his head, and met Edlynn's tentative gaze, "I am Tyrion Lannister."  
"I know," she said. She rose to her feet. Standing straight up, she wasn't surprised that she felt odd being much taller than the man. She was almost Jon's height, too, and she was afraid she would keep growing and growing until she was as tall as Hodor. She wondered if Tyrion had ever felt disappointed as a young child that he had never grown tall like his brother and sister. Maybe that was too personal of a question. She didn't think he would appreciate it.

"You're Ned Stark's girl, aren't you? And his bastard?"

Jon fell silent. Edlynn watched his lips purse, and she only replied a timid, "Yes."

Tyrion spared a glance at the boy, "Did I offend you, boy? Sorry. Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head. You _are_ the bastard, though." He grinned widely.

"Lord Eddard Stark is my father," Jon said stiffly. Edlynn only nodded, slightly dazed by the whole ordeal.

"Yes," Tyrion said, "I can see it. You two have more of the North in you than your siblings."

"Half siblings," Jon corrected. Edlynn, by that point, did not know what was being said, for she was keenly interested rather in thinking of the imp's words, mulling them over earnestly in her thoughts.

"Let me give you some counsel, bastard," Tyrion said, "Never forget who you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."

"What do you know about being a bastard?"  
"All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes."

"You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister."

"Am I? Do tell my lord father that. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure."

"I don't even know who my mother was."

"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are. Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs." And with a rueful grin, he nodded towards Edlynn, "And you, girl, my brother… Well, for some very peculiar reason, would like to have a word with you. As I said, I have learned it is considerably rude to vomit on one's own brother, so I believe it to be wise of you to appear soon enough." And with that, he turned on his heel and returned back to the feast. Edlynn followed him as he sauntered off, whistling a tune she did not recognise. She felt Jon's gaze on her, and she returned with her own of confused and indignance.

"What?"  
"I… I don't want to be rude, Edie, but, what business do you have with the Kingslayer?"

"How would I know? Were you not listening to the Imp, _he_ didn't even know what he wanted with me."

"Well, regardless of what it may be, remember that your maidenhood should come first and foremost as a priority–"

"Jon!"

* * *

After Jon had gotten his laughter in, Edlynn had fled back to the feast, trailing after Tyrion in efforts to find the elusive Lannister brother. It was a very strange thought to her, that there was anything inherently special about her that she did not see about herself which he did enough to warrant to wish to speak with her. Unless, of course, she had been reading very well into it, as was of most unimportant statements and actions she interpreted on her own.

A search, which lead from the fourth hour into the fifth, turned up little, and she had fled into the yard once more, deciding that it was a rather futile effort, to search for a single man within a sea of guests. By some sheer stroke of luck, there Jaime Lannister stood, the Kingslayer, shining bright gold under the shadow of moonlight, holding a pair of books in one hand and his cup of wine he desperately clung onto in the other.

"H– Hello, Ser…" She spoke very softly, as to not surprise him. The effort did not seem to matter much, though, and he jumped up very slightly, sloshing the wine in his cup.

"I'm sorry, Ser, I did not mean to scare you so."

"Oh, girl, no," He raised his brows slightly, motioning for her to move closer to him, "I… Well, if I'm to be truthful, I hardly expected my dwarf brother to bother passing the message along. Of course, I'm sure I seem very strange to you as of right now."

"Rather so, Ser. It's not every day I am beckoned by a knight, nonetheless the _Lord Commander_ of the Kingsguard." One corner of his mouth rose in what she assumed was half a smile at her words.

"Of course, it's not every day I call for the eldest daughter of the Lord of Winterfell personally."

"I would think not, I do believe this is the first time we've spoken, Ser," She said rather wittily.

"I suppose you would like to know the reasoning behind this beckoning, Lady Stark?" She nodded in affirmation.

"Your lord father had said few things in passing when you were performing– very beautifully, might I add. Regardless, I thought that you would particularly enjoy these. He said you were very fond of reading poetry and things as such. They were to be a gift for my _nephew_ for his next name-day _,_ however, I don't believe he would appreciate them very much. You see, tragically, Joffrey is an imbecile." She snorted out an unladylike bit of laughter in agreement.

"Thus, I had asked Tyrion, if he stepped outside as he does during feasts, to inform you to come find me to give you the books. I briefly thought, if we had known one another more, to gift you as well with a sword, but it seemed you were doing just fine with a wooden one." As he grinned, her face erupted in pink once again. He rather thought it to be endearing, like when Cersei had blushed coyly when they were very young and just barely curious enough to touch underneath each other's smallclothes. The thought made his grin lessen; Cersei had become significantly more wanton in the past few years, of course, and the young Stark girl's youthful face and her burgeoning mind was a very refreshing sight.

"I– Well, that… That was my sister's sword. Arya. She hasn't a proper sword, but I do, and I don't want to hurt her at all when we play."

"Are you any good?"

"At what? Swordfighting? Yes, I suppose so. I've beaten all my brothers at least once. I'm much better at archery, I believe."

"Perhaps one day, you will be able to beat me, young maiden-knight," Jaime gave another small smirk, before he finally handed over the books. She took them gratefully, a small, timid smile illuminating her face.

"Thank you, Ser," she murmured, looking at the worn titles of the books. They seemed to be rather old, the binding needing repair and some of the letters worn off on their covers, but she was grateful nonetheless.

"Of course, Lady Stark."

"I'd much prefer if you called me Edlynn. Lady Stark is my mother, you know."

"Of course, Edlynn. Goodnight, Edlynn."

And with that, much like his imp brother, Jaime turned at his heel and sauntered back into the Hall, where the music had lulled and the feast seemed to be nearly over.

But Edlynn did not want to go back inside. If she came back just as Jaime had, her mother and sister would be suspicious, and her head hurt too much to even think of waltzing back through, even with the muddled conversations. And so, she began to walk in the direction of the stables, where the sentry had once been. Edlynn found a spot near her favourite horse, a mare named Spot whom she had known as long as she had been able to walk, then ride. She whinnied a bit, but settled down as Edlynn took a seat atop of a bale of hay, wrapping herself in her cloak as the sentry had, shivering but not much caring for the cold.

She laid on the bed that was not actually a bed for some time, looking at the ceiling of the stable and thinking about how it got a tiny bit dark with every fleeting moment and that she had only noticed it after a while. She could hear the horses softly neighing, a few birds singing, and the wind rustling about the weirwood trees, feeling the fur of what _had_ been Robb's shawl tickle her nose, thinking instead about how she deathly wanted to cut her hair very short like Arya, wishing that the sky was grey instead of black and blue like one large, ominous bruise overhead. An array of emotions and meaningless thoughts skittered through her mind in that instance– was that just the effect the Imp had on her with all of his earnest words of counsel? Or perhaps the strangeness of the Kingslayer? She dearly wanted to sleep for a long while, but she did not want to miss anything. With the passing thought of barley porridge in the morning and feeding her youngest brother tentatively and dark red tea and reading the two new poetry books the old knight brought for her, Edlynn fell asleep on the bale of hay soundly, wishing only that she could be free of these mortal chains that bound her to this cruellest of fates.


	2. Chapter 2

Arya's stitches were crooked again.

Edlynn didn't notice it, too enraptured in finishing the creation of her quilt she had patched together some months ago, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Arya frowning decisively at her small cloth, with its zig-zagged thread. Arya's hand holding the needle like she would hold a sword shook slightly, glancing over at her eldest sister's work she had finished the day before, when she was supposed to have been listening to Maester Luwin go on and on about mathematics until his face turned purple. Unlike her youngest sister, Edlynn had always been good at the matronly arts of sewing, music, and prose (the unholy trinity), but it had never meant she liked doing such things– she much preferred being outside, studying plants and finding new creatures and sparring with their wooden swords, no matter how much teasing she received from Ser Jaime. It was a very upsetting thought, that Edlynn could never read all the books she wanted, never be all the people she wanted to be and live all the lives she wanted to have, never train herself in all the skills she wanted to have. It was a very difficult thing to come to terms with– the fact that, as a woman whose duty it was to marry and bear children, she could never live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. She found it very unfair that women were horribly limited, but men could become anything they set out to very well become, from King to Knight, sailor to merchant, and everything in between. But she had accepted such fate at a very young age, and thus, she tried her best to pay attention at such things as sewing.

Arya, however, was willful, more stubborn than Edlynn would ever admit she herself was. She was not very good at sewing or any things considered suitable for girls, but there was a bit of blame to be put on Septa Mordane. Edlynn had never particularly liked the woman. She showed a large bit of favouritism towards Sansa and her friends, Beth Cassel and Jeyne Poole, who whispered together about something or another. At the moment, however, the Septa was fawning over Princess Myrcella, though her stitches looked to be nearly as crooked as Arya's. Edlynn nudged Arya's arm, giving the group of young girls a small glower.

"Don't pay attention to them," She muttered, "They may have goods hands with needles, but a needle won't amount to much when you threaten them with a sword. Unless, of course, they prick you in the eye with it, but then again, you can always just impale them, too." Arya giggled softly, which caught the attention of the other girls. Jeyne Poole, of course, having gotten some blind courage from that daft fool Theon she always snuck around with, was the first to speak.

"What are you talking about?"

"What are _you_ talking about?" Arya asked, always mature.

"We were talking about the prince," Sansa said softly. Edlynn immediately became more enraptured in finishing her quilt– any talk of Joffrey Baratheon was talk she could not be bothered to listen to.

"Joffrey likes your sister," Jeyne whispered, "He told her she was beautiful."

"He's going to marry her," Beth said, "Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm."

"Oh, Beth, you shouldn't be making up stories," Sansa had the grace to blush. Edlynn did not hate her sister, by any means, but she had grown frustrated long ago that she only cared to _be_ graceful, to _be_ pretty and _be_ proper, and all these things she had been told to aspire to be. She didn't have the godforsaken _grace_ to bother to think for herself; she obeyed what her mother told her to, from rejecting Jon as one of her own kin and rejecting Edlynn and Arya for not being what she was told to be. Hate-mongering, at best. It was disappointing, really, to see the sadness in Arya's big old eyes whenever Sansa said something condescending, or excluded her out her games and things that most children should be able to enjoy at that age. But she kept her mouth shut, in order to avoid conflict within the family, especially when the royalty was stalking about in all of the shadowy corners of Winterfell. She did love Sansa though. She was family, after all, no matter how rude she was sometimes.

"What do you think of Prince Joff, sister? He's very gallant, don't you think?"

"Jon says he looks like a girl," Arya said bluntly. Edlynn snorted quietly.

"Poor Jon," Sansa sighed in what Edlynn believed to be mock sympathy, "He gets jealous because he's a bastard."

"Right shit logic, to be jealous of a blubbering little f–" It was Arya that time who nudged her sister in the ribs as she muttered ruefully, pricking her finger on accident.

"He's our brother," Arya said, trying to speak loud enough for it to get through Sansa's head.

The Septa raised her eyes, "What are you talking about, children?"

Edlynn answered that time. Without looking up from her stitching, she said, "Well, Septa, these little'uns were just discussing how _delighted_ they are by having the Princess here with us today."

The Septa apparently did not pick up on the mocking in her tone, and harrumphed in agreement, "Indeed. A great honour for us all. Arya, why aren't you at work?" She rose to stand on her chicken-like feet, taking the stitching Arya handed her with little shame.

"Arya, Arya, Arya, this will not do. This will not do at all."

Edlynn paused her stitching. Arya's eyes filled with tears. Much like her "bastard" brother had at the feast at any sight of humiliation, she bolted for the door. Unlike the bastard, though, Edlynn decided it best to not chase after Arya. She was a fiercely independent girl, and, as Catelyn had become afraid of, looked up to Edlynn dearly, despite their six year age difference; she knew very well that Arya's anger would cool off after a bit of time. It was how she always was. Besides, she knew the young girl would, somehow or another, find herself at the boys' sparring practice anyways.

Though she held resentment towards Septa Mordane in favouritism, it was hardly a secret that Edlynn loved Arya and Jon the most. At one point, when she was very young, and it had only been her and Robb, her twin brother she bore no resemblance to, she used to be like Arya in some aspects, analysing herself down to the last loose thread, comparing herself with other little, more proper and pretty girls, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles, and words of those to whom she had tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at her own attempts to "be like the rest"– and very young, she had realised, in the midst of her laughing, she had given way to sadness, fell into a ludicrous despondency and once again had started the whole process all over again. The point was, she loved Arya particularly because Edlynn saw much of her younger self in her, especially at this age she was at, a small sprout in the world of girlhood, still impressionable yet; though she tried to be very strong and stubborn and boyish, many things she was told to never become, Edlynn could see that there would forever be the rotting carcass of lost femininity that lingered within her, and sometimes, she would temporarily go septic.

Life, in essence, was perpetually unfair for women, Edlynn believed. If a woman took pride in her "feminine" qualities, such as ideals of beauty or, with Sansa, things as sewing and dancing and playing the harp, a woman was not only striving towards these things at the expense of their well-being, but conforming to the standards imposed upon them. However, this was only applicable to attaining some "feminine" qualities; otherwise, women are discouraged from cultivating others, like the propensity to cry. Sensitive, but not too sensitive, or you'll be deemed irrational. And with Arya, a woman should be strong-willed, but not too strong, or men will be intimidated. And it, too, was a brutally vicious cycle of internalised self-hatred of womankind. Even if she felt guilty about having these societal values ingrained into her being, _that_ was just another effect. If a woman tries to conform to the prescribed role of gender, it was impossible not to feel guilty because there were so many things women have to be that you just can't.

Edlynn thought very intensely of this all while she finished her quilt. She had made it out of wool patches, just like the blanket she had in her room, and intended on giving it to her direwolf pup. Since she thought it was very cruel of her to make the pup sleep on the floor, it had been sleeping all the time in her room on her bed, where tedious hair upon tedious hair laid; when the direwolf had awoken her in the morning in the stables, licking her face happily, Edlynn had decided to finish her quilt to lay atop a bundle of straw taken from the bale into a makeshift bed for her.

She also thought briefly of the books of poetry Jaime had given her, and when an opportunity would arise when she could read them. Most normal days, when there was not a royal family running about, she would have taken a walk after breakfast, attended her lessons, wrote for three hours, had lunch, and read in the afternoon, and because though she struggled to be in control, it was an absolute necessity to follow these rules and routines. But she had let herself go, in a mess of a romanticised thoughts of Ser Jaime, who had been so particularly kind to her despite the fact they were very unfamiliar with one another, and nothing had gotten done. It was a very strange thought, to have any feeling towards a man, especially one so much older than she, and it was an even stranger thought that this man, who was not exactly known for his kindness, gifted her with something very profound. To her, at least, it seemed very profound, as though he knew something she did not, or perhaps she had been resorting to the only train of thought she knew well enough, overthinking a very small action, from the Kingslayer to the little Stark girl.

Edlynn was broken from these thoughts at the realisation of how cross her mother would be with Arya for storming out of her lessons, as well as how Edlynn herself would be blamed for not preventing her from doing so, and she thought it best to escape the brunt of her anger. As the Septa quickly dismissed them, scuttling off to find Catelyn, Edlynn finished up the last stitch and, ignoring the reignited giggles of the young, daft girls, decided to head to the gardens rather than, say, her room, where her mother would find her very easily (though she did briefly stop, on her way outside, to bring her direwolf, who she had only recently named). Edlynn believed had many passions in life, for she was a passionate girl, and she especially enjoyed plants– her father had jested that she must have been a Tyrell in a past life. Though Eddard had hired many a man to take care of the gardens, she took the liberty to help at any point in time, and had learned enough from it that Edlynn, if she were to ever be forced into marriage, could run her own.

The garden was quite nearly the most beautiful places in Winterfell to her, right next to the godswood; the yard was full of vegetables that grew well enough in the cold climate, many leafy greens and root crops. Globe onions and radishes, broccoli and carrots, leeks and turnips, cabbage and parsnips and rutabagas, plenty of herbs, plenty of mushrooms. Of course, it did smell of dung most days, and her mother just hated it when Edlynn came back with her socks soaked in wet mud, but she dearly loved all of the individual sprouts and how nature had withstood the harshness of the North to grow such beautiful things.

The beet was the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, was more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes were lusty enough during the summer, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets were very serious. She believed that her father had inherited his melancholy from beets, the one most willing to suffer, while she had gotten her smoldering inquietude from radishes, and though she related most with the radish, she loved the beet the most. The beet was an ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the ground, now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies. She believed that Jaime must have been a turnip, because one cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip…

 _Ah, drat._ Even when trying to not think about Jaime Lannister, she managed to begin thinking of Jaime Lannister. She was so very sick of reverting back to the small babe she wished dearly not to be, overthinking everything and anything, she was sick of prettiness, sick of privacy, sick of dreaming over this handsome, mature knight sweeping her off her little feet and falling in love with her. It was all nonsense, all chaos, all a farce. All she wished to do was sink her fingers into the dirt and forget about all the troubles around her, about _Jaime_ and everything that kept her up at night. If she kept thinking of all these things, worrying incessantly, her entrails, light, marrow, juice, pulp would be gone. She could be blown into the first puddle and drown.

Even if she did have her own garden, marriage still did not seem pleasant. Granted that she had accepted much of the fact that, as many things she had felt over time, her beliefs could always change. She was still very young, and she only wished that they would give her a bit more time to mature as a girl before considering a betrothal; the thought of going to King's Landing seemed to bring a tone of melancholia to her mind, where there was no foliage to behold left, nor to Dorne, where it would be much too sweltering to hold a garden of anything besides what they were allowed to grow– lemons, olives, pomegranates, and dragon peppers, which held little of the childish wonderment of root vegetables. Which, in hindsight, to Edlynn, might have seemed to be very odd. Even rolling on her gloves in preparation to plant more carrots and leeks after the royal feast had left their stock low did not have the same pleasant feeling anymore. The thought of a man, nonetheless the _Kingslayer,_ or a Martell, or a Tyrell, or quite near any man of any house, taking away her love for her family and her burning and pressing sense of importance and lovability and curiosity of human life, leaving nothing much left but a membrane, a fibre, uncoloured, lifeless, to be thrown away like any other excreta, she would much rather die.

Edlynn, in a way, did mean it sincerely. As she dug away the dirt until it piled up at her elbows, she thought that, even to someone as handsome and as legendary as Ser Jaime, she could never belong to anyone. Her heart was much too heavy to hold the burden of another, no matter what her feverish dreams had told her, she did not want to bear a man's heir and have her soul torn apart, from pulling artlessly with foolish commands. And for a long time, alone, she thought and thought, as was not unusual for her to do, surrounded only by the scent of mint and the silence of the garden. In fact, she had been so enraptured in planting seeds and bulbs she did not even hear someone patter through the gardens to loom above her.

"Is this your wolf, now?" A small, yet very familiar voice asked. Edlynn jumped a bit, but, upon turning her head, saw it was merely Tyrion. She nodded carefully. Her direwolf, whom she had allowed Rickon to name at breakfast, was referred to now as simply "Snuggynoozles", or, rather to save the embarrassment of referring to her wolf as _that,_ was called Snug for short. The she-wolf, who had otherwise been resting comfortable on the flowerbed while her master tended to the garden, looked up excitedly at the small man, her tail beginning to wag enthusiastically and her ears perking. With a slight pat on the pup's behind, Snug ran towards the man almost as tall as she, bombarding him with a long lick on the face, as Edlynn had grown accustomed to. She was well aware her direwolf was not exactly the fiercest of them all, having grown pampered in the domestic life of sucking at a cloth and lounging about all day, as Edlynn was told to not have her around the royalty, and having been allowed to sleep on her master's bed, grew used to showing affection. Compared to the strong Grey Wind, or the protective Ghost, Snug was hardly a ferocious beast. If anything, as much as she disliked to admit, the thing was much closer to Lady.

"What is her name?"

"Well…" She paused to take off her gloves, wondering how to explain it all, "My youngest brother, Rickon, had named his pup already, so I allowed him to name her himself, and he… Well, her name is now Snuggynoozles." Tyrion gave a delighted snort of amusement, petting the wolf after she had nearly tackled him.

"What a lovely garden you have here, Lady Stark," he commented offhandedly, observing the many vegetables and plants. "What do you possibly plant in a place that's this cold?"

"Oh, many things," Edlynn said excitedly, for once staring up at him, "Radishes, turnips, leeks, cabbage, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, rosemary, thyme, mint, mushrooms–"

"What kind of mushrooms, may I ask? You see, I would like to judge which one I look most like; my sister leaves me in the basements and makes me eat shit, so I'm forced to believe she seems to think that I am, indeed, a mushroom."

Edlynn laughed tentatively, "Nothing poisonous, of course, just milk-caps and penny bun."

"Do you run it all by yourself?"

"Oh, of course I don't. If I did, I would say my lord father is rather generous, letting a girl run his entire food supply. We're very low on leeks at the moment, you know." There was a very small lull in conversation when Snug ran back to her own, nuzzling her nose into the column of Edlynn's throat, and Edlynn began packing up her tools and such.

"Tyrion, have you seen my mother or my youngest sister around by chance? My sister… Arya, she's very rash, very easy to anger, and she had run out of our lesson. I was just wondering if our mother was still looking for her, in case I still needed to be hiding out here."

"No, I cannot say I have, unfortunately. What a lovely place it is to hide out, I believe."

"Yes," she said softly, "I suppose it is."

"If I didn't know you were a Stark, I'd reckon you were a child of the forest– perhaps living in an old pine, or maybe a white birch. Or, maybe, a young Tyrell, though you do not seem to hold the intrigue nor cunning, if you do not take offense."

"No, I don't believe I do, anyhow. I pride myself on my honesty, and what honour I retain."

"Ah, there it is– I knew there must have been something inherently Stark about you. Aside from the face, of course. Has anyone ever told you that you bear some resemblance to your… Late aunt?"

She shook her head, "No. However, I have been told I look like a horse, a giant, and, now, a child of the forest. Such fine compliments for an impressionable young girl, don't you think?" He snorted once more.

"How old are you anyways, girl? You are, what, fifteen?"

"Fourteen," she corrected.

"I would say you are wise for your age, I believe, but that would be a lie."

"Why do you say so?"

"It's impossible to be both, my dear. Young people unlike you, who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world, are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, though it is the farthest thing from it. Self-imposed blindness, so to speak, a rejection of the world in fear of it hurting or disappointing us. If lord father is anything like daughter, I don't believe you to be someone who always says no. In fact, I think you have trouble saying the word in the first place."

Tyrion paused, and he looked at her for a long moment. She squirmed slightly, but he continued to stare, until he finally spoke again, "Edlynn– that is your name, correct?"

"Yes."

"What did my brother wish to speak with you about at the feast?" Edlynn flushed a bit at the memory.

"Well… He, he said he heard my father say something about how I enjoyed poetry and song, and he… Apparently, he had already bought books for Prince Joffrey for his nameday, but he, well, he said he was essentially a blithering idiot, and he gave the books to me." She relayed. The Imp nodded solemnly.

"Have you already read the books?"

"No, I haven't found the time yet."

"Do you have them with you?"

"Oh, uh, yes, they're on the bench."

"Would you like to read them together? I would like to see what literature arouses my brother's attention so." Edlynn balked for a moment, blinking owlishly, before she collected herself to rise and take the worn books off of the bench.

"Please, sit, I like feeling tall every now and again," he said, and she flushed once again, self-conscious of her height once more. Snug padded over to lay her head in Edlynn's lap as she sat on the ground, Tyrion on top of the bench. And, for a long while, the Lord and her sat in the garden until a sweet darkness began in the fields. When they finished reading the first story, he asked to read the other, and after they had finished the other, they watched the sun fade. They both stayed very still and very silent, not from embarrassment or any other reason, but simply silent. Unable to find words. And for a moment, a very brief moment, Tyrion Lannister was her only friend in the lonely garden. The turnips did not sing, nor did the beets, only Tyrion, who, though only a dwarf in the eyes of many, was the only man she could see herself to care for. Even with his homely features, he was very brilliant, and he did not mind to sit with her in the very quiet twilight, something she did not understand to appreciate until then.

Somewhere in the great stone maze of Winterfell, a wolf howled.

Snug's ears perked up. Tyrion looked up from the books just as another howl pierced the air. Edlynn glanced at him as he slid off the bench delicately, massaging some feeling back into his legs, and grinned waggishly, his dark eye in particular glinting with mirth.

"I suppose that is our cue to leave?"

"Yes," she murmured, "I suppose it is."

* * *

Edlynn was not informed until the morning about what had happened to her young brother. Bran, as she had been told when she had broken her fast at dawn, had seemingly snapped his back falling from one of the high towers, the fall having shattered his legs. He had been sustained on honey and water thus far, with her mother having clung to his side all through the night. She had scarcely gotten much sleep, though, as she had anticipated with his wolf howling all through the night. Even Snug, wrapped up in her new quilt, had been whining and pawing at the door for hours upon hours. She had been told that, if he awoke, he would be able to eat real food, but he would never be able to walk again, which, to Edlynn, seemed like the least of his problems, considering the fact there was a high chance he would never wake up to begin with.

Days passed without further incident; Edlynn had began the fourth day with racking blankets with her hands, softly, with stray, rolling pearl tears in the image of the saccharin Mother, unbelievably florid. She had scars on her knees from running over to Jon too fast when they were very young, when blood had dripped from the wound like sap out of a tree, and she ran her fingers over the marks absentmindedly when she changed, thinking of her younger brother and how it must have felt to be on the border between a premature death and a fruitless life. As she put on her tunic, tucking it into her skirt, she contemplated how exactly she might have to say goodbye to Bran. She hoped he was able to listen and know they all cared for him very much.

The time in between when he had fallen and that moment had passed monotonously– she had scarcely seen her mother, always by her son's bedside, and Edlynn had abandoned all her lessons in favour of reading somberly by the light of two candles and beginning a new fast of only drinking strong tea. Her handmaiden gave her notice that her father wished to speak to her at her very convenience, and Edlynn decidedly chose that the remainder of her day resuming in a consistent cycle of heavy-heartedness could hold off for the time being. The young handmaiden told Edlynn promptly that Eddard had left early to the Godswood, and promptly draped a fur cloak on her shoulders, patting her behind as soon as she exited her chambers.


	3. Chapter 3

The godswood was a very mystical place to Edlynn, and she had believed for the longest time that was where she was closest to being as pure as on the day of creation. During the night, though, she never liked to go through it, no matter what, because it felt like all of the spirits had gone to sleep for the night and it was not her right to disturb them. What was coming through the night there like holy orchids, blackish red, or apple branches with the sounds of cold water rushed by her in the dark; honeyed and sulky, cinematic and shadowy, she trembled at the very thought of entering such sacred planes by her mortal vessel. The morning, however, felt very foreign– unlike the trance of melancholy she received at night, it felt disconnected and light, almost floating, dreamy and distant, much like the hazy fog over her mind she experienced when she dreamt.

For a long time, she hadn't believed in any gods, new or old. A god, to her, was a focus of belief. And she found it rather silly that, if enough people believed, a god began to grow. Feebly, at first, but if the godswood taught anything, it taught patience. Anything could be the focus of a god. A handful of feathers with a red ribbon around them, a hat and cloak on a couple of sticks, anything. Because when all people had was virtually nothing, then anything could be almost everything.

And for a very long time, she found this idea to be rather absurd. There were no stories or rights of passage that came with the Old Gods, no strict list of rules to follow or anything of the sorts. The idea to her that there were some strange gods which lingered in the weirwood trees, their names lost in the sands of time, seem very mysterious to Edlynn when she was young. It was similar to the stories Old Nan had told them as children about the wildlings, that they were cruel men, slavers and slayers and thieves, who consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. But the longer Edlynn thought of it, the more strange it sounded; it was an old wives tale, and, like the Old Gods, had been passed down so many generations down the line that the truth was murky enough that little of it shone through. But, for the sake of her father, who had righteously believed in these folk legends since he was very young himself, Edlynn devoted much of her time to praying in the godswood every fortnight.

The godswood composed of dense forest forming a heavy canopy over old, packed earth, the loom soft with humus, moss, and wild mushrooms; she could recognise all the trees, which ones she had climbed as a child and which she had carved names into, chestnut and hawthorn and soldier pine, initials marring their ancient bark. After she briskly waded through the branches down into the path towards the centre of the grove, there stood her father, staring deeply into the face of the heart tree, casting a faint shadow upon the pool of black water. Hesitantly, Edlynn's hand reached out for him. When it came to rest upon his shoulder, Eddard flinched, but placed his much larger hand upon his eldest daughter's.

The look he gave her when he turned around Edlynn could only truly describe as anguish. She did believe with all her heart he had inherited his melancholic nature from the beets, but she did not voice this childish thought to her father of all people, no matter how much of an accepting man he may have been. His long face that mirrored her own was silent and thoughtful for a very long time– perhaps, Edlynn thought, she had not only received her name in honour of her father, but his own beet-like attitude. All she had been doing since the royals came around, after all, was think and think.

"Edie," he began, "I… I understand your thoughts upon marriage, dear daughter."

"And?" she questioned, staring at her father for a moment, before ducking her head, not wishing to glance over his shoulder and meet the eyes of the weirwood tree. He did not respond quickly enough for her liking, and she took a hesitant step closer to him, reaching her hand so much like his own towards Eddard. He soon repented his words.

"Edlynn…" He said very softly, staring blankly at the ground, so much unlike himself Edlynn became greatly concerned with the matter at hand.

"You've planned to send me off? Is that it?"

He did not say anything. Instead, he only gave a very brief nod of his head, up, down.

"To who?"

"Your sister is getting handed to Prince Joffrey," he ignored her question.

"Sansa?"

"Yes. Sansa."

"Who am I to be handed to, then?"

"Ser Jaime–"

"Ser Jaime?!"

"Sweetest daughter, I don't believe there to be another–"

"Father, pardon my insolence, but, if I do say, I don't _possibly_ think there could be a worse match to be made! The man is twice my age! Not to mention he's in the Kingsguard– he can't even get _married_!" Eddard hushed his daughter, her increasingly upset tone growing higher and louder with every word, and she only frowned at him decisively.

"Edlynn," he said sternly. "The arrangement has been made with the King and that's final; you're to be wed to Jaime in a month's time. You're to leave with your sisters to King's Landing–"

"No! I'm not going!" She shouted bitterly, voice echoing in the barren woods, "There's not a damn thing you can do to make me!"

"Now, Edlynn, I did not wish to force you into this, but you've left me with no other choice–"

"Then don't wed me off to him! Please, father–"

"Edlynn," his voice cut sharply, and she looked to her feet in shame, "You'd do well to remember that I am your _father,_ and as your father, you'll do as I say until you have married a man and have ventured off on your own. Until then, you're to obey by me, and I am _ordering_ you to be wed to the Kingslayer in twenty days. Now, stop interrupting me, and go to your lessons with Septa Mordane. I've instructed her to begin teaching you in the art of homemaking. If you'll excuse me, _daughter,_ I have to attend to the King."

Wth that, her father, unusually cold, turned away from her, walking the way she had come. Silently, instead of shouting, complaining, Edlynn began to weep very softly and stay still, no words bothering to come from her. The moral fabric she had sewn since youth had been shattered in a very brief instance of futile resistance, and the result had become her, sobbing into her own shirt, teetering on her two feet in the middle of the godswood, shaking very strongly as her lord father's steps soon became very faint. Heaving a great breath, she squeezed her eyes shut until she felt no other presence but her own and the weirwood tree, and, refusing to open them, began to follow her father back to the castle, where she planned on, rather, holing herself up in one of the corners of the library and lamenting over the death of her short-lived protest against the patriarchal society which had constricted her since birth.

For the rest of the night, she silently languished in her rut, thoughts muddled by conceptual domesticity. For some time before they were to set off for King's Landing, she sat in the library, reading a book on the history of the free folk by dripping candlelight, trying desperately to revert to how it had been before. She broke her fast and ate dark bread with spiced mashed chickpeas, cut up tomatoes, and bean sprouts, trying to finish her book, trying to feel normal for a very brief moment, trying very desperately not to cry. Edlynn felt the urge to shout to the world the anguish of her soul, the torments she had experienced as a result of her mourning, all her sorrows, but she knew nobody wanted to hear about them. There had been generation upon generation of women who had gone through the same experience of courting, and they had all survived it whether or not they liked it, too. Her body itself was comprised of hundreds of years of history, passed down through so many generations of women like a family heirloom, the body of her mother, her grandmother, and her grandmother's grandmother, the same hips and the same hands and the same strong arms. When she would be married to the Kingslayer, her body would become her only true home, and some days, she knew that, when his masculine dictation arose, from her aunt's calloused feet and her grandmother's broad shoulders and her great-grandmother's bony fingers, she would dearly wish she could take better care of the home she lived within.

But none of that would really matter once they were wed, she thought. As soon as they were to be wed, her home would be ransacked, she would be violated, and the evidence would come forth in the form of a small, screaming beast that had been produced from her loins, a permanent reminder of some forsaken event that she would never truly recover from. And this would continue onward for the next twenty, thirty, forty years, until Jaime croaked over and left her to rot on Casterly Rock for the rest of her miserable days with all the babes he had forced out of her, all of them named Tywin. And Edlynn, by all means, did not want this, and thus attempted to romanticise the whole thing, the demise of her adamancy against systematic oppression in the form of a man taking her as his own, slapping his surname upon her as though she were new lands to conquer, something to covet like a possession.

At the very thought, an unfamiliar rage bubbled up beneath her surface, carefully smothered like a flame. She never wanted to be married, and her lord father was very damn well aware of this; she especially did not want to be married to the Kingslayer–

 _The Kingslayer._ He had to have been in upon the conspiracy. To her, there was no possible way around that fact; as soon as those snobbish, prissy, annoying little royals had stumbled into her true home, he was there, staring at her, and he had given her those books under some delicately constructed persona of kindness, and outwardly, she had not ever strung the pieces together to see it clearly. Was that, too, why Tyrion had even taken such an interest in her and her half-brother? Under the guise of genuine intrigue, had he been twisted by his own lord father and the King, in some efforts to ensure Edlynn's loyalty? Had their entire visit, every encounter and every exchanged word, been just one big fallacy, a weave of lies intricately knitted together like a blanket to lull her into a false sense of comfort?

 _No_ , a very small part of her said, _that was hardly rational_ , to think that all of the royals were conspiring against her to ensure their marriage. Edlynn, clinging on to those remaining bits of a timid childhood, thought that they, such people of beauty and much higher statuses, hardly cared for a rude, lanky, ugly daughter of a northern lord. Or, at the very least, not nearly enough to assemble such an elaborate scheme to ensure their marriage. Even then, in that prospect, Edlynn highly doubted, being surrounded by beautiful women as far as the eye could see in King's Landing, that the Kingslayer was absolutely delighted about being married to a _child,_ a girl who had been told for a majority of her life she resembled an old jennet, who still sparred with a wooden sword and believed that root vegetables had souls and personality traits. Edlynn doubted he was delighted with the idea himself– maybe it wouldn't be as bad as she believed it to be, maybe they would avoid each other in spite for their entire marriage, and he would be so repulsed by her, he always had his sister's cold, slimy loins to keep him company instead.

Edlynn was hardly stupid, and had very well heard of the rumours circulating around the Seven Kingdoms of the two siblings; she, at first, had willed herself to ignore the rumours and focus solely on the royal family's character, but, after Joffrey's snide attitude at the feast, the incident during their lessons with the daft Myrcella, and the betrothal between her and the damn Kingslayer of all people, Edlynn did not feel the need to censor herself around any of them anymore. The only royal person she cared for in the slightest was Tyrion, and even then, that was a stretch, keeping at the back of her mind the prerogative of paranoia towards the lot of them.

Edlynn sat, and she read, and she ate, and she thought, and that was all she wanted.

That was all she _did_ for some time, days on end, after Jon had left and they were to be leaving for the capital city in only a few short days. She read and ate and thought, for those were the only things she had left she would be endlessly passionate about, and she would rather have been dead than have, at the very minimum, those necessities ripped from her as her father had mercilessly done to her abstract yet very clear vision of continual misandry.

She would miss Arya the most when she were to be wed. She loved Jon dearly, but he was in the far canticles of the Wall and there would be little reason to miss him if he were to be gone for the rest of her life and his; she loved Robb dearly as well, her twin whom she had entered the world with and who she planned on leaving with, arm in arm, but Arya, she was her most favourite, a young thing who had so many years left in her, so much passion within that had yet to be stomped out by the harsh boot of compulsory womanhood. Edlynn had learned much from her, in ways Arya did not yet understand. She learned that femininity was incapable of abstraction and that detachment from constructs surrounding it, let alone their constructors, is a privilege masculine voyeurs both exploited and were limited by; the maleness Edlynn saw was defined by such abstraction (the act of detachment) for masculinity was exploitative of, if not defined by, lack. Edlynn, the sacrificial lamb waiting for her own inevitable slaughter, felt she had become necessitated by the concept of the Other, that which is not male, a thought she believed she had learned from Arya herself. She had learned many things from Arya, and, likewise, had taught her just as much, if not more. And it all would be abandoned by the time she left for King's Landing.

King's Landing. She dearly did not want to think of the place. Before Jon had left, he had told her that she would pick herself out of the rut soon enough, and that she would enjoy being in a true city, just another bumbling face passing by in a vast ocean of people, a dream of hers if she had ever had one. She tried her very best not to ruminate very long on the topic, though her stint of depression, locked up inside her chambers for eight days and nights, was only briefly broken by a bath and a venture into the library once more to return her books and collect new material (as it was, by then, the bindings of the books Ser Jaime had given her grew tarnished, though she willed herself to act as though she were indifferent to their state and the handsome man that had been prophesied in her dreams).

Soon enough, she, her father, and her two sisters had left for the capital. As they travelled south, the breezes became warmer, Edlynn wore her shoes less and less, bees buzzing gently under the clouds, water rushing through the forest trails, caterpillars chewing on leaves, misty mornings where she played her harp endlessly, fasting and crying in her sleep, as though she wasn't very well aware there were numerous women– all of the Targaryen women who had been forced into marrying their brothers, fathers, uncles, whoever it may had been, noblewomen, young girls who hadn't even had their first bleeding, and common whores from sea to shining sea– they had suffered far more than she had.

On the eighth day of their melancholic travels, she was surprised by Sansa's rare appearance in the older girl's carriage, hesitantly stepping through as though she was in foreign lands, wearing a dress made of grey velvet, looking almost comically out of place in such a dingy place where Edlynn would be forced to call home for the duration of the trip.

It was not to say that Edlynn did not harbor animosity towards her sister for the cruelness in the way she treated Arya and Jon, nor the facade of kindness she put on for the royal family, but that dislike for her family member was all very much enhanced when they were alone together, because, then, Sansa held the same hatred for her elder sister as she did her younger. To Sansa, Edlynn had a knack for making everything that Arya ruined worse, and without Arya, she still had none of the tact nor grace that she was taught was admirable. To Edlynn, however, Sansa was still her sister, and every insult she had hurled her way had some lesson to be learned from it– though, for the most part, every jab and jest was more out of pettiness, if anything, but there needed to be some rationality behind it, or Edlynn would fear she was becoming as heedless as Arya (who, admirably, did not care whatsoever).

Regardless, Sansa, head tilted upwards, nose in the air, walked hesitantly to where her elder sister was sat, on the floor of the carriage, reading a very old book about the Year of the Red Spring, a befitting book for her impetuous melancholy. The girl cleared her throat pointedly, making Edlynn's head snap up to stare at her.

"You better put on something pretty," Sansa told her pompously, "Septa Mordane said so. We're travelling in the Queen's wheelhouse with Princess Myrcella today."

"I'm not," Edlynn stated blandly, staring up at her sister as though she were dafter than she had originally thought.

"Why ever not?" She regarded her with disbelief and exasperation.

"Because, dear sister, I plan to hovel myself up in here until I'm dead."

Sansa balked, already having lost her patience when regarding her younger sister as it had been, before she moved to slam Edlynn's book shut, huffing like a child who hadn't gotten her way– which, if Edlynn thought about it, was precisely what she was in that instant.

"You have to come with me," Sansa insisted. "You can't refuse the Queen. Septa Mordane will expect you." Edlynn frowned crossly and pointedly tugged her book away from Sansa's dainty little hand, standing to her full height for some sort of argumentative advantage, as she quite nearly casted a shadow on Sansa's comparatively tiny form.

"The thing is, Sansa, you say these things as though I care about pleasing either the Queen _or_ the Septa. As a matter of fact, I dislike both of them as it is. So, it would be best of you to strut your way out of my study, and go on your merry little tryst with the royals, and leave me out of it." Edlynn said finitely, immediately turning her attention away from Sansa. After what had happened with Arya only a few minutes prior, Sansa gaped, stupefied by her rebellious sisters in a way she had not ever become accustomed to, nor did she think she ever would.

The air of the her carriage was stuffy and reeked of stale parchment and of other odd things, like spices, the red residue of sourleaf, lavender, and wet dirt; Sansa blinked rapidly down at her sister's horsey face, her hair oily and tangled and pulled away from her face, her clothes ruffled and baggy, and wondered, very vividly, very intensely, why the Gods had given her such terrible luck to be closely related to two sisters who, by all accounts, were the epitome of two different degrees of masculinity. Sansa grew distraught, standing in the middle of the library as her elder sister paid no consideration, no care; all she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in songs and in stories. Why couldn't Arya and Edlynn be sweet and kind and delicate, like Princess Myrcella? Why did they have to be rude and brash and stubborn? How could three sisters, born mere years apart from one another, could be so different? Perhaps it was in the ubiquitous Stark genes, long faces and brown hair, which gave them such animosity towards Sansa and all things proper?

As soon as Sansa began to sniffle, Edlynn's thick brows rose sharply upwards in a nearly humorous fashion, casting a brief glance to see Sansa, standing where she had been for a long few moments. Sansa, collecting herself, realising then, in that moment, her sister would harbour as much care for her feelings as it was likewise for the elder, she fled the library, off to journey with the prince and queen and all those dreamy titles she had been enamoured with since birth.

Meanwhile, Edlynn's eyebrows dropped, and she continued on with her wallowing.

* * *

She was not alerted until a long time later that, ultimately, it had been a bad idea to reject her sister, for there had thus arisen conflict in an area where Edlynn had primarily acted as mediator.

They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked raised road through an endless black bog, and Edlynn had spent most of her time with her head lolling out the window of the carriage, feeling the chilly, damp air on her cheeks, admiring the dense thickets of half-drowned trees tightly woven together, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus, huge flowers blooming in the mud, floating on pools of stagnant water. She wished so dearly to be like one of the flowers, that, if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there was quicksand waiting, willing to suck you down to your demise, snakes watching from the trees, lizard-lions partially submerged in the water, black logs with beady eyes and teeth. She knew her younger sister despised the bog, but Arya loved it– she had come from the depths grinning toothily, hair tangled, covered from the crown of her head to her littlest toe covered in mud, clutching a bouquet of purple and green flowers for their father, though she had gotten a rash on her arms the day after from the purple ones, which she laughed off and had Edlynn rub mud into the rashes to help stop the itching, after she put salves on all her greenish bruises the youthful girl had gotten from who knew where.

Edlynn herself hadn't partaken in the poison kisses, but she had spent a short time off the causeway in the mud, though Sansa had called her a bog-woman the whole time, she spent a large amount of time showing Arya the pale lady's tresses, taught her the taste of primrose, like morning dew on your tongue, explored the lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers, and the frisky ones– inkberry, lamb's quarters, blueberries, and the aromatic ones– rosemary, oregano. She found nettles for tea and peppermint to put in her pocket, the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit, rejoicing as she learned to love the transient space they lived in, sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

And that was what she did for the majority of four days, instead of going with Sansa to the Queen's carriage or adventuring with Mycah and Arya. Not caring much for anyone's wandering eyes, she, down to her smallclothes, waded into the mud, trying to find more flowers, more herbs and plants and bugs and species to identify in her journal. By the middle of the third day, she was back inside, having washed her dirty legs and feet and changed her clothes. And it was only on the morning of the fourth when she had been notified after the event in question that, by the account of their lord father, Sansa and Joffrey had encountered Arya and the butcher's boy, Mycah, in the forest. They had gotten into an altercation which resulted in Nymeria biting Joffrey and all of them crying home to their parents– namely, first of all, the damned Queen Cersei, who was all too willing to off their heads. Luckily, Edlynn had been informed afterwards, as she seemingly missed all excitement in her life by being a homebody, that the King had been commendable in the very least that he had allowed her lord father to give a punishment to his daughter as the King would his son; however, Mycah had been killed by the Hound in retribution by some nasty blow that nearly severed the boy in two, which Arya had not taken very well.

Arya spent the next few nights in Edlynn's carriage, wrapped up in one of her eldest sister's quilts as Snug laid her huge head atop Arya's, mourning the loss of the direwolf's sisters as well. They had a small funeral in honour of Mycah in the bog for the last few days they were there, where she performed a makeshift ceremony by way of what little folk knowledge had been passed down to her through her father, saying a prayer for the boy despite the lack of weirwood. And until they arrived in the Red Keep, Edlynn was the only person Arya could trust aside from their father, and though Sansa scowled scathingly at both of them and called Edlynn a bog-devil, they were happy to be together as they passed through, speaking of magical realism and curiosities and nostalgia, though it was primarily Arya doing the talking.

Edlynn attempted to reduce intellectual and emotional noise until she arrived not in the capital city, but at the silence of herself and listened, intently, to her. She feared that, when at Casterly Rock, all of the minor things she was fond of that most found either unusual or mundane would be taken from her, and most people, under certain circumstances, wouldn't care one way or the other about it. Edlynn, an introvert, a measly homebody with, to her, no notable characteristics or traits, didn't think she would survive any longer than necessary– never again would she work on her garden, the sacred land she had been working to maintain for years, body bruised, but always feel emotionally restored, soul feeling new, shiny, feeling reborn six time over. She was afraid that, in King's Landing, her spirit would grow ancient within her, weighed down by its heartbreak for an eternity.


	4. Chapter 4

They arrived at the gargantuan bronze doors of the Red Keep sore, tired, hungry, and incredibly irritable. She had been awoken by the footsteps of her father while he was snapping at a steward from outside her carriage, and soon attempted to fall back asleep to dream of a long, hot soak, a roasted fowl, and a soft featherbed. This dream was fulfilled by the morrow, where, in her new chambers in one far-off end of the castle that she had requested to stay in, she was greeted with a hot bath with oils of myrrh and tonka, an elaborate meal of oxtail soup, spiced squash, and crusty hunks of bread, as well as an already-made up bed with thick quilts and thin sheets that were necessities in the humidity of the south.

This became regular routine, to which Edlynn was thankful for. Because of her father becoming the Hand to the King, a fact he had strategically left out in their unfortunate meeting inside the godswood, she was received well by the few who interacted with her in the far recesses of the castle, in one of the towers across from her father's Tower of the Hand, where she spent most of her time, aside from the library, which was so vast and splendidly filled to the brim with the remaining Targaryen novels and historical artifacts she was immediately drawn to the place, as well as the godswood which, in comparison to the one in Winterfell, was not nearly as compelling to her. It was much smaller, an acre of elm, alder, and black cottonwood trees that overlooked the Blackwater Rush, with a great oak, cascading with smokeberry vines draped all across it. Whenever she stepped foot in the meager thing, she did not feel the Gods to be with her, but she felt like she was watched incessantly, and Edlynn kept going back to it for the sole reason to maintain her faith.

One evening, Arya and Edlynn sat at the table, eating a thick, sweet soup made of pumpkin, when their father came into the Small Hall, late as per usual. The evidence of his fights with the council were plainly written on his face, tired and aged.

"My lord," Jory Cassel, a knight of their house whom Edlynn had known since infancy, said, rising to his feet with the rest of the guard. Each man wore a new cloak, heavy grey wool with a white satin border. A hand of beaten silver clutched the woolen folds of each cloak and marked their wearers as men of the Hand's household guard. There were only fifty of them, so most of the benches were empty, yet Edlynn still felt flustered with all of the men flooding the hall.

"Be seated," their father said. "I see you have started without me. I am pleased to know there are still some men of sense in this city." He signaled for the meal to resume. The servants began bringing out platters of ribs, roasted in a crust of garlic and herbs.

"The talk in the yard is we shall have a tourney, my lord," Jory said as he resumed his seat. "They say that knights will come from all over the realm to joust and feast in honor of your appointment as Hand of the King."

It was fairly obvious to see that Ned was not very happy about this, and Edlynn exchanged a glance with Arya, who frowned decisively.

"Do they also say this is the last thing in the world I would have wished?" Her eyes flittered towards Sansa, sat between Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole as far away as physically possible without getting chastised by their father. Her sister's eyes were wide as plates as she imagined how her prince charming, that little shithead Joffrey, would fight in her honour, though he was but a boy playing dress up and she did not realise that they wouldn't permit a child to fight in a tourney.

"Will we be permitted to go, Father?" Sansa asked breathily.

"You know my feelings, Sansa. It seems I must arrange Robert's games and pretend to be honored for his sake. That does not mean I must subject my daughters to this folly."

"Oh, please," Sansa said. "I want to see."

Septa Mordane spoke up. "Princess Myrcella will be there, my lord, and her younger than Lady Sansa. All the ladies of the court will be expected at a grand event like this, and as the tourney is in your honor, it would look queer if your family did not attend."

Father looked pained, frowning in a manner similar to Arya, "I suppose so. Very well, I shall arrange a place for you, Sansa." He caught Arya and Edlynn's eyes. "For all of you."

"I don't care about their stupid tourney," Arya said, always having something to say. She knew Prince Joffrey would be there, and she hated Prince Joffrey. Edlynn wanted to agree with her outwardly, but imagining the anger that would flash over their father's face, she thought it wise to ignore it, and sat quietly, scraping garlic off with a spoon.

"It will be a splendid event. You shan't be wanted." Sansa sniffed, head lifted high into the air.

" _Enough_ , Sansa. More of that and you will change my mind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expect you to behave like sisters, is that understood?" Their father snapped. Sansa bit her lip and nodded, while Arya lowered her face to stare sadly at her plate, eyes glassy with the sting of tears. Suddenly, Edlynn looked to her father beseechingly.

"I… I will go, father, if it would please you." She murmured. Ned, glancing at her with surprise, for though Sansa would speak to Arya only if their father forced her to, the younger girl refused to talk to Edlynn. He nodded after a long moment, while both her younger sisters stared off at her, bewildered.

"Thank you, Edlynn, for being the… Peacekeeper of your sisters. The Kingslayer will be in attendance, I presume." He gave her a look she could not particularly decipher, and abruptly stood up, "Pray excuse me," her father announced to the table. "I find I have small appetite tonight."

"Goodnight, father," Edlynn said quietly, and Eddard nodded to his daughter, leaving the Small Hall. As soon as he left, she heard Sansa giggling with Jeyne, and the hall erupt in noise again, while Arya sniffled quietly as she stared at her plate and Edlynn shook silently. Suddenly, Jeyne Poole's dark eyes slid over to the older girl slyly, while Sansa's awful, tinkling laughter continued.

"Why did your father mention the Kingslayer? Is he planning on riding _you_ in the tourney, Horseface?" Sansa erupted in peals of giggles, and Edlynn felt her face burn red, scowling.

"No, he _isn't_ , you utter troll– if anything, he'll be letting _me_ do the riding on our wedding night!" She snapped, not much caring if her words were crass or not. Jeyne's face was the one to turn bright scarlet, the tips of her protuberant ears glowing pink, and Sansa's laughter soon induced her into a coughing fit, while the men around them, particularly Harwin, the son of Hullen, who was known to be outrageously bold, cackled loudly.

"Edlynn Stark! Watch your filthy mouth!" The Septa suddenly erupted; Edlynn found it amusing that the old woman had nothing to say when Jeyne Poole was calling her a horse. While she began yelling at her eldest sister, Arya pushed away from the table, abandoning her courtesies and running for the door, when Septa Mordane began to yell for her, voice growing shriller and shriller. The septa stood and chased after Arya, leaving the elder two sisters and Jeyne Poole, still blushing furiously. Following, Edlynn, with pink cheeks and a heavy heart, fled in the opposite direction, off to her chambers, to have a bath or to take a nap or to start a war.

* * *

Soon enough, the Hand's tourney rolled about, and Edlynn was forced to ride with Sansa, Septa Mordane, and Jeyne Poole, the latter of whom still refused to look the betrothed girl in the eyes after her snide reply. The litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them revealed the entire world swathed in beautiful glimmering sunshine, a hundred pavilions and the many common folk, the shining armor, the decorations of silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd that only slinked into her ears, the banners sashaying in the wind, and the knights, so many knights.

"It is better than the songs," She heard Sansa whisper, and for once, Edlynn agreed. She had read plenty of fanciful fairy tales like the romanticised songs Sansa fawned over endlessly, and none of them quite lived up to the beauty and grandeur of the tourney itself. They found the places father had promised Sansa, among the high lords and ladies, and though Edlynn felt uncomfortable and out of place, she knew her younger sister thrived on attention, she kept her posture straight and stared forward, feeling the prying eyes of others surrounding them. She had made sure to keep in mind their father's plight, and, in efforts to keep the sisters together, Edlynn had allowed Sansa a variety of childish things– to dress her up, to do her hair, and, unfortunately, court her out in front of Jaime Lannister, who, until that point, had been far out of her mind, since Tyrion had been by the Wall for some time with her bastard brother. Thus, he had been out of mind until Jeyne Poole and her big fat mouth had gotten in the way of that.

Thus, Sansa had spent the entire morning anointing her with perfumes and gabbing on about how _glad_ she was Edlynn was making an effort into being more feminine (and, ergo, "more presentable"). She smelled of rosehips and, though she felt as beautiful as she ever would with the lingering nickname of Horseface on her mind, she felt awkward and stuffy in the dark red velvet, heavy on her skin, sweat puckering on her upper lip.

The group watched the heroes ride forth, from the white-clad Kingsguard with Ser Jaime in elaborate gold armour, his lion's head helmet and golden sword glittering brightly; Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, thundered past them like an avalanche. Edlynn remembered Lord Yohn Royce, who had guested at Winterfell two years before.

"His armor is bronze, thousands and thousands of years old, engraved with magic runes that ward him against harm," Sansa whispered to Jeyne. Edlynn forced herself not to roll her eyes.

Septa Mordane pointed out Lord Jason Mallister, in indigo chased with silver, the wings of an eagle on his helm. He had cut down three of Rhaegar's bannermen on the Trident. The girls giggled over the warrior priest Thoros of Myr, with his flapping red robes and shaven head, until the septa told them that he had once scaled the walls of Pyke with a flaming sword in hand. There passed hedge knights from the Fingers and Highgarden and the mountains of Dorne, unsung freeriders and new-made squires, the younger sons of high lords and the heirs of lesser houses. Ser Balon Swann. Lord Bryce Caron of the Marches. Bronze Yohn's heir, Ser Andar Royce, and his younger brother Ser Robar, their silvered steel plate filigreed in bronze with the same ancient runes that warded their father. The twins Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, whose shields displayed the grape cluster sigil of the Redwynes, burgundy on blue. Patrek Mallister, Lord Jason's son. Six Freys of the Crossing: Ser Jared, Ser Hosteen, Ser Danwell, Ser Emmon, Ser Theo, Ser Perwyn, sons and grandsons of old Lord Walder Frey, and his bastard son Martyn Rivers as well. Jeyne Poole confessed herself frightened by the look of Jalabhar Xho, an exile prince from the Summer Isles who wore a cape of green and scarlet feathers over skin as dark as night, but when she saw young Lord Beric Dondarrion, with his hair like red gold and his black shield slashed by lightning, she found herself cursing her father for having her betrothed to Jaime, for she would have been more than willing to accept the hand of such a handsome man.

The Hound entered the lists as well, and so too the king's brother, handsome Lord Renly of Storm's End. Jory, Alyn, and Harwin rode for Winterfell and the north.

"Jory looks a beggar among these others," Septa Mordane sniffed when he appeared. Edlynn couldn't resist the snort that escaped her, far from ladylike, which immediately caught the attention of the Septa, who scowled.

Though Septa Mordane cursed him, Jory did well for himself, unhorsing Horas Redwyne in his first joust and one of the Freys in his second. In his third match, he rode three passes at a freerider named Lothor Brune whose armor was as drab as his own. Neither man lost his seat, but Brune's lance was steadier and his blows better placed, and the king gave him the victory. Alyn and Harwin fared less well; Harwin was unhorsed in his first tilt by Ser Meryn of the Kingsguard, while Alyn fell to Ser Balon Swann.

The jousting went all day and into the dusk, the hooves of the great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was a ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried out in unison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into splinters while the commons screamed for their favorites. Edlynn, however, stayed deathly silent, watching in morbid curiosity as the men fell, while Jeyne covered her eyes like a frightened little child and Sansa, though notably a craven, kept her composure. The elder girl, though, stared unabashedly, the rush she would get in sparring Arya (who, as of lately, had been getting lessons form one of the best swordsmen in the land, a fact Edlynn grew jealous of and had been distant from Arya ever since) only barely quenched when a man was knocked off his horse.

Edlynn watched the Kingslayer the most– he rode brilliantly. He overthrew man after man easily, but took a hard-fought match from Barristan Selmy, who had won his first two tilts against men thirty and forty years his junior. Sandor Clegane and his immense brother, Ser Gregor the Mountain, seemed unstoppable as well, riding down one foe after the next in ferocious style. The most terrifying moment of the day came during Ser Gregor's second joust, when his lance rode up and struck a young knight from the Vale under the gorget with such force that it drove through his throat, killing him instantly. The youth fell not ten feet from where Edlynn was seated.

The point of Ser Gregor's lance had snapped off in his neck, and his life's blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer's day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.

Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took her off to regain her composure, and Edlynn turned to comfort her sister, but found Sansa sitting with her hands folded in her lap, staring intently as well. It was different to Edlynn, who had gone on plenty of trips with her brothers, who had seen plenty of executions; she had expected to see her sister bawling at the demise of some knight she hadn't even remembered the name of, but found her surprisingly dry-eyed, and Edlynn watched back as it came to the Hound, his monstrous brother Gregor, Jaime Lannister, and Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, his intricately fashioned armour and snow-white stallion making him the most beautiful painting of a prince she could ever imagine. He had flounced over towards Sansa and Edlynn, much too comfortable assuming every boy would go to Sansa, sweet Sansa, Sansa with the sleek auburn hair and the big doe eyes, watched boredly as the boy, no older than sixteen, trotted his steed over in front of her.

To all the other maidens, he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red.

"Sweet lady," he said gallantly, "no victory is half so beautiful as you."

Edlynn, staring blankly at the rose, pointed to herself dumbly, very much certain he was mistaken, to which Loras laughed lightly and nodded in affirmation. She took the flower timidly, her fingers trembling. He was a very handsome boy with messy brown curls, eyes like the glinting sunshine. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat, hunching over long after Ser Loras had ridden off. When she turned to Sansa once more, she was gaping, as well as Jeyne Poole, whose ears seemed to almost permanently perk up. Even the Septa had her brows furrowed in shock, but soon returned to her plain countenance, and Edlynn smiled secretly into the flower's petals.

However, when she turned to Sansa, there was a short, older man looming above both of the sisters.

"You must be one of her daughters," he said to Sansa. He had grey-green eyes that did not smile when his mouth did. "You have the Tully look."

"I'm Sansa Stark," she said, and instinctively, Edlynn moved closer to Sansa, as weary of the man as her sister. The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord, but she did not know him.

"I have not had the honor, my lord." Edlynn said swiftly.

Septa Mordane quickly took a hand. "Sweet child, this is Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king's small council."

"Your mother was my queen of beauty once," the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. "You have her hair." His fingers brushed against Sansa cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Edlynn was quick to reach out and smack his hand abruptly. Though Sansa hated her a large amount of time, that wasn't going to stop her from protecting her from any men, King's council or not.

Suddenly, affronted, he turned and walked away. By then, the moon was well up and the crowd was tired, so the king decreed that the last three matches would be fought the next morning, before the melee. While the commons began their walk home, talking of the day's jousts and the matches to come on the morrow, the court moved to the riverside to begin the feast.

Six monstrous huge aurochs had been roasting for hours, turning slowly on wooden spits while kitchen boys basted them with butter and herbs until the meat crackled and spit. Tables and benches had been raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass and strawberries and fresh-baked bread that Edlynn smelled almost immediately underneath the heady smell of burning flesh. The sisters and the Septa were given places of high honour, to the left of the raised dais where the king sat next to the queen, the "blithering idiot" Joffrey sitting himself to Sansa's right, the Septa in between the sisters.

Edlynn's eyes sought out the golden lion himself, and found him staring right back, his biting emerald glare going to the red rose still clutched in her hand. Quickly, she placed the flower on her lap, and broke their stare as the first course came. For the rest of the night, the meals came and left– thick barley and venison soup, sweetgrass and spinach salad with plums and crushed nuts, honey and garlic snails, clay-baked trout, pieces of the slow-roasted auroch, and later came sweetbreads, pigeon pie, baked apples, lemon cakes… By that point, Edlynn had only managed to stuff down only one fig tart, as much as she loved them. Through the haze she had gotten from her profuse drinking, attempting to block out the loud noises and the glances the Kingslayer would pay her.

By dessert, when she had managed to down her tart, King Robert had grown louder and louder with each incoming course. She heard him over the clanging of cutlery and laughter, but chose to stay ignorant of both him and the rest of the royalty, until late into the night.

"No," he thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. Edlynn, shaken out of her drunken stupor, looked to see the king on his feet, face beet-red, reeling, a goblet of wine in one hand, as drunk as possible.

"You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Queen Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" Everyone was staring. Edlynn saw Ser Barristan, and the king's brother Renly, and the short man who had tried to touch Sansa, but no one made a move to interfere. The queen's face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing behind.

Jaime put a hand on the king's shoulder, but the king shoved him away hard. Jaime stumbled and fell. The king guffawed merrily.

"The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer." He slapped his chest with the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic. "Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand before me!"

Jaime Lannister, with a look she could not decipher, rose and brushed himself off. "As you say, Your Grace." His voice was stiff. Lord Renly came forward, smiling.

"You've spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet."

Suddenly, she heard Joffrey speak, and when she looked to him, his hand laid on her sister's arm.

"It grows late," the prince said. "Do you need an escort back to the castle?"

"No," Sansa started, but looked to Edlynn, whose face was more than likely as red as the king's, and then to the Septa, who was fast asleep with her head on the table, snoring softly.

"I mean to say… Yes, thank you, that would be most kind. I am tired, and the way is so dark. I should be glad for some protection." Sansa said genially, taking her sister by the hand for the first time in years. Tugging the taller (and heavier) girl up, Sansa stood with her sister who shook on her two lanky legs, like a newborn fawn just learning to walk.

Joffrey called out, " _Dog_!"

Sandor Clegane soon appeared, his sudden arrival making Edlynn nearly jump out of her own skin. He had put on a red tunic with a leather dog's head on the front instead of his armour he had worn earlier. Sansa held onto her big sister's arm much like Arya had once done when they had first met the royals, and Edlynn stood, too drunk to be afraid of anything much, head raised high and proud like Sansa had been taught.

"Yes, Your Grace?" he said.

"Take my betrothed and her sister back to the castle, and see that no harm befalls them," the prince told him brusquely.

And without even a word of farewell, Joffrey strode off, leaving the two of them there.

Alone, with the Hound, Edlynn did not feel his eyes on her, thankfully enough. A curl that had been carefully slicked down bounced out of place when she stumbled slightly to face her younger sister fully as the Hound unblinkingly glared down at Sansa.

"Did you think Joff was going to take you himself?" He laughed. He had a laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. "Small chance of that. Come, you're not the only one needs sleep. I've drunk too much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow." He laughed again.

Suddenly terrified, Edlynn pushed at Septa Mordane's shoulder, hoping to wake her, but she only snored the louder. King Robert had stumbled off and half the benches were suddenly empty. The feast was over, and the beautiful dream had ended with it.

The Hound snatched up a torch to light their way. Edlynn, trying to regain her alcoholic pride, followed close beside him, Sansa behind her, clutching onto her skirts. The ground was rocky and uneven; the flickering light made it seem to shift and move beneath her. She kept her eyes forward, watching where he went– she was bound to stumble anyways. They walked among the pavilions, each with its banner and its armor hung outside, the silence weighing heavier with every step.

"You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor," Sansa said uncomfortably, so quiet Edlynn hardly thought anyone else heard, until Sandor Clegane snarled at her.

"Spare me your empty little compliments, girl… And your ser's. I am no knight. I spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see him ride today?"

"Yes," Sansa whispered, trembling.

"He was… Gallant?" the Hound finished. He was mocking her.

"No one could withstand him," she managed at last, proud of herself. Suddenly, Sandor stopped in the middle of a dark and empty field. Edlynn felt herself grow enraged steadily as he began to speak again.

"Some septa trained you well. You're like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren't you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."

"That's unkind–" Sansa said, trembling again. Finally, Edlynn straightened her back, putting her haziness behind her. She tucked Sansa behind her, away from the prying eyes of the giant man, who raised one brow at her in amusement.

"It's the truth enough. No one could ever withstand Gregor. That boy today, his second joust, Gregor was just being a right ass, really– he didn't have his gorget properly fastened, and he saw it, didn't he? He's not gallant in the slightest, and the lot of your are– you're– you're all mad!"

Sandor, as though he had suddenly seen her for the first time, smiled very eerily. She could feel Sansa shaking behind her.

"Oh, so your the little bird's big sister, huh? Not as empty-headed as a bird for true, and more ballsy than one too… Gregor's lance goes where Gregor wants it to go." He put a huge hand under her chin that was already pointed defiantly up to him, squatting in front of her and moving the torch closer.

"There's a pretty for you, Loras's little petal– take a good long stare. You know you want to. I've felt you staring at me all the way down the kingsroad. Piss on that. Take your look." His fingers held her jaw as hard as an iron trap. She felt little fear in her, aside from the thought he could easily crush her skull with his fist alone. Drunken eyes met drunken eyes, both sullen with anger. The right side of his face was gaunt, sharp cheekbones, a grey eye beneath a heavy brow, his nose big and hooked, hair thin and dark, brushed over his burns on the left side of his face. Burnt away ear, leaving only a hole, twisted mass of scar pocked with craters and fissured by deep cracks that look wet when he moved. She could hear Sansa begin to cry, and he let go of Edlynn, snuffing out the torch in the dirt.

"No little pretty words like your sister? Nothing?" When she refused to answer, he continued. "Most of them, they think it was some battle. A siege, a burning tower, an enemy with a torch. One fool asked if it was dragon's breath." His laugh was softer this time, but just as bitter.

"I'll tell you what it was, girl," he said, a voice from the night, a shadow leaning so close now that she could smell the sour stench of wine on his breath. She purposely puffed a burst of her own breath into his face, but he only smiled cruelly again.

"I was younger than you, six, maybe seven. A woodcarver set up shop in the village under my father's keep, and to buy favor he sent us gifts. The old man made marvelous toys. I don't remember what I got, but it was Gregor's gift I wanted. A wooden knight, all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings, so you could make him fight. Gregor is five years older than me, the toy was nothing to him, he was already a squire, near six foot tall and muscled like an ox. So I took his knight, but there was no joy to it, I tell you. I was scared all the while, and true enough, he found me. There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed. You saw how strong he is. Even then, it took three grown men to drag him off me. The septons preach about the seven hells. What do they know? Only a man who's been burned knows what hell is truly like.

"My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Arise, Ser Gregor.'"

The rasping voice trailed off. He squatted silently before her, a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes. He was a foot and a half taller than her and nearly a foot wider, too, she realised, but she wasn't afraid of him anymore. Sansa's sniffling had ceased, too, and Edlynn stared, unflinchingly at him. She thought, though his story was tragic, he had no right to be so rude and intimidating to her and her sister, nor did he have any room to give her the inclination he thought her to be ugly, when he was just a scarred little boy in the body of a hulking man.

"He wasn't a real knight." She said clearly.

He stared blankly down at her for a long, silent moment,

The rest of the way into the city, Sandor Clegane said not a word. He led her and Sansa to where the carts were waiting, told a driver to take them back to the Red Keep, and climbed in after her. They rode in silence through the King's Gate and up torchlit city streets. He opened the postern door and led her into the castle, his burned face twitching and his eyes brooding, and he was one step behind her as they climbed the tower stairs. He took her safe all the way to the corridor outside her bedchamber.

"Thank you, my lord," Sansa said meekly, always the polite one. The Hound caught her by the arm and, when he tried leaning close, Edlynn reaching an arm between them, just as she had done with the little man earlier. Instead, he put his other hand on Edlynn's wrist.

"The things I told you tonight," he said, his voice sounding even rougher than usual. "If you ever tell Joffrey… Your other sister, your father… Any of them…"

"I won't," Sansa whispered. "I promise." His eyes swivelled to stare at Edlynn.

"No, never," She swallowed thickly. "I won't tell."

It was not enough. "If you ever tell anyone, either of you," he finished, "I'll kill you."


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Sansa, though terrified over the sisters' encounter with Sandor Clegane, went through the same routine they had gone through the morning prior. Edlynn nursed her own headache after the night of drinking and had little motivation to stop her sister from pinning her hair very carefully and wrench her corset tightly shut. Instead of the thick red velvet, Sansa decided on a soft pink gown made of layers of Myrish lace, pinning the now-brittle rose she had been gifted by Loras Tyrell into the mass of curls she had magically tamed, anointing her with her favourite scents– myrrh, tonka, and cloves, the heavy, spiced scent making her somewhat homesick. Sansa was much too eager to watch the end of the joust, and their father was to join them towards the beginning of the final rounds. Their father had made it on his word after meandering through the crowd; Sansa hadn't even noticed him appear, but Edlynn, though her head throbbed, greeted her father with the pleasantries necessary.

Sandor Clegane was the first rider to appear. He wore an olive-green cloak over his soot grey armor. That, and his hound's-head helm, were his only concession to ornament.

"A hundred golden dragons on the Kingslayer," the little man who had touched Sansa the day before announced loudly as Jaime Lannister entered the lists, riding an elegant blood bay destrier. The horse wore a blanket of gilded ringmail, and Jaime glittered from head to heel. Even his lance was fashioned from the golden wood of the Summer Isles.

"Done," Lord Renly shouted back. "The Hound has a hungry look about him this morning."

"Even hungry dogs know better than to bite the hand that feeds them," the little man called dryly. Sandor Clegane dropped his visor with an audible clang and took up his position.

Ser Jaime meandered over to them and tossed a kiss towards Edlynn, who only blinked blankly when her father stared over at her, exasperated. He gently lowered his visor, and rode to the end of the lists. Both men couched their lances.

Edlynn watched on, moist-eyed and eager. The hastily erected gallery trembled as the horses broke into a gallop. The Hound leaned forward as he rode, his lance rock steady, but Jaime shifted his seat deftly in the instant before impact. Clegane's point was turned harmlessly against the golden shield with the lion blazon, while his own hit square.

Wood shattered, and the Hound reeled, fighting to keep his seat. She faintly heard Sansa gasp, but she paid no mind. A ragged cheer went up from the commons.

"I wonder how I ought spend your money," little man called down to Lord Renly. The Hound just managed to stay in his saddle. He jerked his mount around hard and rode back to the lists for the second pass. Jaime Lannister tossed down his broken lance and snatched up a fresh one, jesting with his squire. The Hound spurred forward at a hard gallop. Lannister rode to meet him.

This time, when Jaime shifted his seat, Sandor Clegane shifted with him. Both lances exploded, and by the time the splinters had settled, a riderless blood bay was trotting off in search of grass while Ser Jaime Lannister rolled in the dirt, golden and dented.

Sansa said, "I knew the Hound would win." Edlynn casted her a glance over her shoulder.

"If you know who's going to win the second match, speak up now before Lord Renly dries everyone clean," She said deftly. Ned smiled.

"A pity the Imp is not here with us," Lord Renly said. "I should have won twice as much."

Jaime Lannister was back on his feet, but his ornate lion helmet had been twisted around and dented in his fall, and now he could not get it off.

The commons were hooting and pointing, the lords and ladies were trying to stifle their chuckles, and failing, and over it all Ned could hear King Robert laughing, louder than anyone. Finally they had to lead the Lion of Lannister off to a blacksmith, blind and stumbling. By then Ser Gregor Clegane was in position at the head of the lists. He was huge, the biggest man that Edlynn had ever seen.

Robert Baratheon and his brothers were all big men, as was the Hound, and back at Winterfell there was a simple-minded stable boy named Hodor who dwarfed them all, but the knight they called the Mountain That Rides would have towered over Hodor. He was well over seven feet tall, closer to eight, with massive shoulders and arms thick as the trunks of small trees. His destrier seemed a pony in between his armored legs, and the lance he carried looked as small as a broom handle.

The Knight of Flowers entered then, and a hushed murmur ran through the crowd. Her sister whispered about how beautiful he was, and it was true– even the thrill that ran through her when Jaime looked at her was nothing in comparison to even looking at Loras Tyrell, who was, today, dressed in a suit of polished silver and filigreed, with elaborate black vines and forget-me-nots made of sapphires, as well as a cloak woven from forget-me-nots, real ones, fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape.

Dimly, Edlynn thought to her encounter with the Imp they had spoken of, and remembered when he had told her she looked like a child of the forest, or a Tyrell, and felt another wonderful shiver run through her at the prospect of being considered even remotely close to _that_ beautiful. Even his horse, a lovely grey mare built for speed, was beautiful. Suddenly, Edlynn felt herself clutch at her father's arm.

"Father, please don't let Ser Gregor hurt him," she muttered quietly, brows furrowed, the dried rose still pinned in her hair.

"These are tourney lances," he told his daughter. "They make them to splinter on impact, so no one is hurt." Yet, her mind flashed to the dead boy in the cart with the cloak of crescent moons, and words felt raw in her throat. When she looked back, Ser Gregor was having trouble controlling his horse. The stallion was screaming and pawing the ground, shaking his head.

The Mountain kicked at the animal savagely with an armored boot. The horse reared and almost threw him. The Knight of Flowers saluted the king, rode to the far end of the list, and couched his lance, ready. Ser Gregor brought his animal to the line, fighting with the reins. And suddenly it began.

The Mountain's stallion broke in a hard gallop, plunging forward wildly, while the mare charged as smooth as a flow of silk. Ser Gregor wrenched his shield into position, juggled with his lance, and all the while fought to hold his unruly mount on a straight line, and suddenly Loras Tyrell was on him, placing the point of his lance just there, and in an eye blink the Mountain was failing. He was so huge that he took his horse down with him in a tangle of steel and flesh. Ned heard applause, cheers, whistles, shocked gasps, excited muttering, and over it all the rasping, raucous laughter of the Hound. The Knight of Flowers reined up at the end of the lists.

His lance was not even broken. His sapphires winked in the sun as he raised his visor, smiling. The commons went mad for him. In the middle of the field, Ser Gregor Clegane disentangled himself and came boiling to his feet. He wrenched off his helm and slammed it down onto the ground. His face was dark with fury and his hair fell down into his eyes.

"My sword," he shouted to his squire, and the boy ran it out to him. By then his stallion was back on its feet as well. Gregor Clegane killed the horse with a single blow of such ferocity that it half severed the animal's neck. Cheers turned to shrieks in a heartbeat. The stallion went to its knees, screaming as it died. By then Gregor was striding down the lists toward Ser Loras Tyrell, his bloody sword clutched in his fist.

"Stop him!" Ned shouted, but his words were lost in the roar. Everyone else was yelling as well, and Sansa was crying. It all happened so fast. The Knight of Flowers was shouting for his own sword as Ser Gregor knocked his squire aside and made a grab for the reins of his horse. The mare scented blood and reared. Loras Tyrell kept his seat, but barely. Ser Gregor swung his sword, a savage two-handed blow that took the boy in the chest and knocked him from the saddle.

The courser dashed away in panic as Ser Loras lay stunned in the dirt. But as Gregor lifted his sword for the killing blow, a rasping voice warned, "Leave him be," and a steel-clad hand wrenched him away from the boy.

By the time the Mountain and the Hound had fought for a short while, the king's voice soon ended it, on top of twenty swords.

"Stop this madness!" He boomed, "In the name of your king!" The Hound went to one knee. Ser Gregor's blow cut air, and at last he came to his senses.

He dropped his sword and glared at Robert, surrounded by his Kingsguard and a dozen other knights and guardsmen. Wordlessly, he turned and strode off, shoving past Barristan Selmy.

"Let him go," Robert said, and as quickly as that, it was over.

"Is the Hound the champion now?" Sansa asked Ned.

"No," Edlynn cut in. "There will be one final joust, between the Hound and the Knight of Flowers."

A few moments later Ser Loras Tyrell walked back onto the field in a simple linen doublet and said to Sandor Clegane, "I owe you my life. The day is yours, ser."

"I am no ser," the Hound replied, but he took the victory, and the champion's purse, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, the love of the commons. They cheered him as he left the lists to return to his pavilion.

As Edlynn, accompanied by her father and sister, walked to the archery field, the small man (who she had learned was named Littlefinger) and Lord Renly and some of the others fell in with them.

"Tyrell had to know the mare was in heat," Littlefinger was saying. "I swear the boy planned the whole thing. Gregor has always favored huge, ill-tempered stallions with more spirit than sense." The notion seemed to amuse him. It did not amuse Ser Barristan Selmy.

"There is small honor in tricks," the old man said stiffly.

"Small honor and twenty thousand golds." Lord Renly smiled

They watched a young boy named Anguy, an unheralded commoner from the Dornish Marches, win the archery competition, beating out Ser Balon Swann and Jalabhar Xho, and witnessed the red priest, Thoros of Myr, win the melee, because his fire sword frightened the mounts of other riders, and nothing frightened Thoros.

That night at the feast, Edlynn thought her father looked more hopeful than he had been in a great while. King Robert was in high good humor, the Lannisters were nowhere to be seen, and even she, Sansa, and Arya were getting along. Jory brought Arya down to join them, and Sansa spoke to her sister pleasantly, much to Edlynn's shock.

"The tournament was magnificent," she sighed.

"You should have come." Edlynn said happily, "How was your dancing?"

"I'm sore all over," Arya reported back joyfully, displaying a huge purple bruise on her leg.

"You must be a terrible dancer," Sansa said doubtfully, and Edlynn laughed.

* * *

Later, when Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the "Dance of the Dragons," Edlynn had decided to bid her youngest sister and father goodnight, somewhat tipsy, and walked unsteadily down the way Sandor Clegane had lead her and Sansa the night before. In the pitch darkness, it was difficult, but she found her way through, down the kingsroad and past the field to the carts. She rode in it silently, lost in her thoughts, hungry and tired and dreaming of strawberries, tomato salad, steamed cauliflower, nettle tea, washing her face and taking a hot bath and a well-made bed in her bed at home, at _Winterfell._ She endlessly wished she could scam some sweetsleep from one of the maesters and down the whole bottle, pinches be damned– though she was constantly melodramatic, she wanted to sleep, and she contemplated seeking out the Grand Maester Pycelle, though she knew it was not wise of her to do so.

Instead, when the cart returned back to the Red Keep, she walked steadily to her bedchambers, removed all the pins from her hair, put on her pyjamas, called her handmaiden for some tea and fig tarts to be delivered to her room, and fled to the library in search of another book to keep her busy. _The Loves of Queen Nymeria_ grew boring after a long while, and she had read her poetry books from Ser Jaime through and through, over and over– instead, she longed for a copy of the _Jade Compendium_ and, if they had it, _Horse Tribes, Being a Study of the Nomads of the Eastern Plains of Essos._ With quite every thought revolving around men that day, emotional taxation, she dreamt of open, free land– she dreamt of rivers with a hundred mouths, mountains where the leaves turned over like silver fire, feathers, flittings, grace notes, tree into bird, metamorphosis running wild. She dreamt of a life that she might once have had, thousands of years ago, when she herself, Edlynn, did not exist.

She padded down the hallway in her socks, no light to guide herself by, but it wouldn't be necessary. It was rather pathetic that she had the directions to the library memorised, but it would only be a short time, she thought, and it was alright if it was only for a moment that the directions mattered. It would have been more embarrassing if it were something that had worth or long-lasting effects, like the stories Old Nan had told her or the hymns of the godswood passed down from her ancestors, something like that, something that had hit her upon impact, but would matter when she was as old as Old Nan or when her grandchildren were as old as she.

She arrived at the library, quietly put away Nymeria's tale, and grabbed the books she wished for. It wasn't that difficult to do in the dark, either, because she was well aware that the section across from the tales of the Dothraki, containing such stories as _Fire Upon The Grass_ , sat across from the ones about Essos and its free cities, while around the corner were stories of the Wall and beyond; down the aisle and to the left were ones of various species, like the White Walkers, dragons, children of the forest, the First Men, and others. She quickly took them and fled before she was to be caught, clutching them to her chest. Suddenly worried about someone like the Cleganes finding her roaming the castle alone, she scrambled, half-blind in the dark, and turned the corner with too much speed.

Edlynn ran smack dab into someone. She heard his dull grunt from the impact, and she quickly curtsied, embarrassed beyond belief, still nervous, trying to squint at the man through the dark.

"I am so sorry, Ser," she babbled incoherently, voice cracking, not even certain it _was_ a Ser. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I just need to–" Edlynn didn't manage to finish her sentence as she tried to rush past the man, but a firm hand on her arm stopped her.

"Edlynn? Are you quite alright?" He asked, as though he cared. She frowned, suddenly.

"Excuse me? Do I know you?" She asked in return, trying to see the man's face.

He laughed suddenly, "Well, I'd hope so– we're to be wed in a short time, it would be a shame to my ego if you did not know me by now." She hoped Jaime could not see her bright red cheeks in the dark.

"Oh– oh, Ser Jaime, I did– I didn't recognise you, Ser…" He did not say anything in reply, but she could see the glimmer of his bright white smile in the dim light. He lead her by the arm into one of the few illuminated corridors, for what purpose, she was unsure, and went only hesitantly,

Up close, she was a very pretty young thing, and smelled heady and of spices, so very unlike his sister, perpetually reeking of sour wine and the thick scent of sex. His eyes travelled over her youthful face, from her carefully pinned hair falling out in a mess of dark curls to the slight glimmer in her dark grey eyes, the plush cupid's bow of her lips to the edges of her mouth that drooped into a frown, all the way down to the tops of her pert breasts. She had freckles he had never noticed before– one underneath her eye, one on her chin, and one under her collarbone, a marring of her perfect skin gleaming like sweetened milk in the soft light. She wasn't beautiful, no, but because she was young, and because she had the potential to be beautiful by the time she was Cersei's age, she was good enough, and that was all that mattered– not to mention, from what her father had said, she had a good head on her shoulders, but too much of that Stark honour; she could be pliant, he thought, she was too easily molded to fit what people wanted her to fit, her father, him, her sisters…

He was very well aware she did not love him, nor did he think that, after two meager encounters, he could love her. But she could be someone who could attend well to a household. Tyrion had told him of their meeting in the gardens of Winterfell, where she tended to a variety of vegetables, and of her direwolf, who was perpetually locked up in her chambers, but was the kindest, most domesticated out of the children. She was innocent, and docile, and he hardly thought she could hurt more than a fly, despite her protests she could use a sword just as well as her brothers. And, for the purpose of accepting what fate Robert had given him, he allowed himself to romanticise all of the motherly qualities she possessed for the sake of their future children, sans what children he already had.

At the very least, she would be a better mother than Cersei ever was–

"Do you know when the wedding is?" She questioned quietly. He shook his head abruptly.

"Your… Your father gave me the impression it would be in a few days. A ceremony in the sept, a ceremony in the godswood. We would leave to Casterly Rock in a week's time." Edlynn nodded, suddenly sullen. Some part of him hated seeing her look so sad, so pathetic, like a mouse that got its tail stepped on. "Soon, I hope," he added, as though this were a comforting thought.

"Yes," she said softly. "Soon."

It was quiet for a moment. He took note of the books sitting in her arms, cradled to her chest.

"Have you read the poetry books yet?"

"Of course," she balked, as though this were a very funny joke to her. "Ten times over."

"Did you like them?"

"Oh, very much so, Ser– they were full of very interesting thoughts. I liked them a lot."

"That's lovely. Did you like the poetry books as much as you liked watching me get knocked onto my arse this afternoon?"

"No, I enjoyed the sight of that exponentially more than any book I'll ever read," she grinned, even as he batted her lightly on the shoulder.

"Really? The Queen of love and beauty finds such amusement in crass things as men getting knocked off their steeds?" He teased, only half bitter.

"I am _not_ the queen of love and beauty, thank you very much!" Edlynn was what she believed to be a homely girl and, after patting her hair to make sure she had taken out the dried flower from her hair, frowned at Jaime, who laughed quietly at her dismay.

"Alright, if you insist, my lady. Will I be invited to you and the Knight of Flowers' wedding? I'd rather get a kick out of watching that bedding–"

"You're awful!" She was the one to bat him on the shoulder at that time, shocked at his audacity.

"So I have been told," he snickered. Her cheeks had turned pink once more.

"I– I didn't mean it like that," she stuttered out, stumbling over her words. "You're– you're not awful like that, I've only called you the Kingslayer once, and that was because– of, uh, of impropriety, and I, I did not at all want Sansa to think ill of you or anything, like, like that–"

When he grew tired of hearing her mumble madly, he soon pressed himself against the young maiden and silenced her with a kiss.

It was very odd. She tasted like nectar and salt– nectar and salt and apples. Pollen and stars and hinges. She tasted like fairy tales, swan maiden at midnight, cream on the tip of a fox's tongue. She tasted like hope.

But, just as the flower would bloom and fade, the sun would rise and sink, the lover loved and went, pulling herself from Jaime's grasp with a soft gasp. She stared up at him, bewildered, as though she hadn't single handedly taken away his heart of stone and given him a heart of flesh in two meager trysts in the night. He felt ashamed that he was ashamed being with her, that the relationship between he and Cersei, one that he had convinced himself was pure, had been tainted by the thoughts of a little horse-faced girl who was too lean and small-breasted and had barely seen her first bleeding at best. He held her face for a very long time in his hands, staring at her face, eyes running over her features once more– thick eyebrows, big grey eyes, long black eyelashes, that damned freckle, long nose, swollen lips, chiclet teeth, swan neck, slender shoulders, high breasted… Then, he leaned in for another kiss, and she stood, stiff as a board, even when his hands went to her waist, trying to persuade something out of her.

Hands on her waist, leaning forward, kissing her, long, slow, deliberate. And yet, she stood obsolete, the only reaction she provided him with being a heady tremor that shook through her. She tasted sweet the second time around, like summerwine, and he finally pulled away when her shaking grew dangerous and he grew weary of her state. After a moment of staring in concern at her blank expression, she grabbed his arm sharply, drew in her breath, brought her hands up around his neck, and, before Jaime himself knew it, she was kissing him, too. It was obvious she had never been kissed before, but for what she lacked in technique she made up in newfound eagerness, pressing herself against him, letting her body mold into his. For the time being, he savoured the virgin's touch he had taken from her in one fell swoop, the nervousness he had instilled within her that caused her to tremble madly, and enjoyed the contrast of her mouth to his old sister-love.

After a long moment, he tasted tentatively with his tongue, and Edlynn opened her mouth with a small, almost inaudible moan that he swallowed happily. Her lips, beloved, were like a honeycomb: honey and milk under the tongue, the smell of her clothes the smell of what he imagined home was like. It was a surreal experience, kissing the Stark girl in the very edge of the corridor, her face glowing in the dim light, suddenly warm and somewhat hysterical for some inexplicable reason. They stood, kissing very genially for what felt like forever, and he pulled away carefully, her lips chasing him as he leaned back.

"Now why did you have to do a thing like that?" she asked softly, brows furrowed.

Instead of answering her, Jaime only smiled secretively, "I'll be seeing you soon, Edlynn." In his clenched palm, he slid a small, heavy thing into her tiny hand, and soon disappeared. And, without another word, Edlynn was left confused, staring at the empty space in front of her.

* * *

She had fell into a fitful sleep after returning back to her chambers after the strange but not entirely unpleasant tryst with Ser Jaime in the corridor. Edlynn awoke to the slinking heat coming through the open window in her chamber, a morning chill settling in the air with the milky dew that formed on the dusty glass pane, her smallclothes sticking to her skin. She had dreamt of rock formation that looked like the head of a lion again, except it was morning instead and she was cloaked in the warm sunlight and the cool, crisp breeze ran its finger through her hair. The air was heavy with the scent of the sea, of flowers, vines, grass, and growth, the only sounds she heard being of bees, a gentle wind chime from a distance away, and her own steady, deep breathing. She did not have a baby in her arms, no, but she did not feel alone. It felt like her place, one of her own, like she was back at Winterfell, but it was much too warm to be up North and it didn't feel right in a way.

Snuggy started to lick her face funnily when she awoke and Edlynn smiled and laughed and kissed the massive dog on the head. She dressed and bathed and read for a bit as the handmaidens attempted to tame her hair into a sleek plate, making her smell of lavender and other floral scents she didn't care for. Everything passed by in a blur while her head was stuck up high in the heavens, deep in her thoughts, a homebody whose only home was her body, thinking of cloud-watching just past noon, a picnic of cheese and figs, the way tall grass moved in the wind, a bottle of nectar, a trail of ants. By the time they were done, she was being lead down to the eating hall in a daze.

When she entered the small hall her family often occupied to find her father fixing her plate like he used to when she was small, Edlynn immediately assumed the worst. When she saw the half a loaf of potato bread smothered in butter, she knew whatever her father was preparing to tell her, she would not like it. While Arya and Sansa both stared at their plates, never once meeting their sister's eyes, Eddard laid out porridge with a ladle of honey and milk, a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, and mint tea, and Edlynn, approaching tentatively, unsure of what her father's intentions were, and, suddenly, a small smile formed on her father's face, pulling her chair out and placing a heavy, calloused hand on her thoroughly-oiled head.

"Sweet Edie," he started, and she flinched. "I have come bearing news."

"What is it, father?" she asked, quietly, and out of the corner of her eye, Arya began to bite at the corner of one of her dirty nails, a nervous tick she had picked up off Edlynn herself, and she began to tremble once again.

"The wedding is scheduled to be tomorrow afternoon. Tonight, Ser Jaime will be relinquishing his status as a Ser, and in the morning, you'll be carted off to prepare for the ceremony."

Reluctantly, she nodded, schooling her features into neutrality. Inside, she desperately wanted to cry, to tell her father he was making a mistake sending her off to a man who was twice her age, who fucked his sister and killed more men than she could ever imagine. But, instead of voicing this, Edlynn nodded, and began to eat as her father smiled tiredly and left to attend to his own duties.


	6. Chapter 6

She had never believed herself to be particularly beautiful, but on the day of their wedding, as though the Gods above wished to punish her for her insolence, Edlynn felt particularly ugly, and refused to glance at herself in the mirror as the handmaidens attempted to put her hair into a short plait. When she did spare a brief look, she thought herself to be a hideous little girl with broad shoulders and long, lanky legs. Her nose jutted out of her face, her cheeks gaunt to the point that, if she had not known better, she would have thought herself to be ill, her hair too messy and too curly to ever be as silky and pretty as Sansa's. Today, she had thrown on the only thin tunics she owned, tucked sloppily into her high-waisted skirt, skimming her bony, yet protuberant feet, the entire ensemble homely in comparison to the wedding gown she had been sent that were much too elegant to be worn on such a dreadfully ugly person. Absentmindedly, she fished inside her pocket for the thing Ser Jaime had gifted her with, a ring, and willed herself not to put it on, lest she resolve to become a girl who believed ostentatious displays of wealth such as the soft sheen of gold of the lion's head, his ruby eyes glimmering in the dim light of the early morning.

The wedding was not to be held until midday in the royal sept, to appeal to Ser Jaime's (who would no longer be a ser afterwards) faith towards the Seven, though she knew very well he was not a religious man. Until then, Edlynn shooed off her handmaidens to sit in silence within her chambers for the entirety of the day. The last thing she wanted to do was to be around people– once more, briefly, she felt envy for her half-brother, whose life at the Wall she knew must have been much more wonderful than that of King's Landing, the icy silence provided by the deep north she would have preferred more than the dripping heat and constant noise. Instead, she stayed locked inside her room, reading and playing unnecessarily melancholic songs on her small harp, listening and thinking and wanting most definitely to escape and run back to Winterfell, back to Robb and Bran and Rickon, even Theon.

She did not like King's Landing whatsoever anymore; it was a cesspool of corruption and debauchery, riddled with smog and filth, the least suitable place for a family of royalty in the whole world. There was no greenery, no beauty, nothing that spoke to her as intensely as Winterfell had, not as vividly did the colours gleam nor did any emotion feel as strongly as she had been when she was where she had come from. Perhaps it was because there was the looming shadow of her loss of innocence upon the horizon that had given her such a negative tone upon the city itself, but it was such a disgusting hovel regardless that Edlynn sought no joy outside the castle's walls. Unlike Arya, who roamed about freely as she so wished to, training to fight by Syrio Forel in the art of Braavosi swordsmanship, Edlynn had been cooped up inside the constraining walls of the castle, doing what she had been doing for the past fifteen years of her life with a curl of disgust within her stomach, reading and sewing and everything she could do to keep her attention off the wedding.

Edlynn was very well aware that she was being extremely melodramatic about it all, about the wedding and her fate afterwards, but she didn't particularly care. What she did care about, however, was the loss of freedom that would come with it, the precise reason she stretched out her theatrics so. After her conversation with Jaime in the hall only a single day before, she did not understand his feelings for her nor what he believed to be getting out of their betrothal. He was a grown man who could wed any woman in the Seven Kingdoms, if she looked like his own goddamn sister, and here he was, marrying some little Northern girl who hadn't any life experience other than the walls that encased her home, someone who wanted him as little as he wanted her. But the problem that arose was that, truthfully, she did not know how much he wanted her, and she would forever question the tumultuous encounters they shared.

Like the kiss. He had stolen something from her without her permission nor any fleetingly romantic gesture to accompany it. Edlynn had been thinking about it constantly, against her better judgement, playing sappy songs on the harp and wondering if everything in life would be as terrible as Jaime Lannister stealing her first kiss, but she had decided that the only thing that could be worse than that was if she were to be tortured by Cersei herself and eaten alive by the last Targaryen dragon. Even then, the humiliation she felt, a flush that made her cheeks blotch with colour, would not amount to that, and thought that he had possibly humiliated her beyond belief, and she didn't understand why, but that was the most heinous of crimes. Melodramatically, Edlynn silently contemplated dying, and wondered if it wasn't as terrible as she had been told. A quiet death in bed, her direwolf at her side, surrounded by all the material possessions she loved the most but would not follow her in the afterlife.

Maybe there wouldn't be all darkness and silence. Maybe there would be windchimes and the smell of lemons, the air dry and sweet. She could only hope for it to be beautiful afterwards.

This was not the life she wanted for herself. She wanted to live in the North, where she had been borne, the blood of the First Men, the veins of the warriors and the mothers and the innocents, their ghosts roaming the trees, nothing left but whispers in the wind, tall tales. She wanted to live in the North, and live the quiet life she had always wished for, and die in the North, and become one of those ghosts, waste away in the gusts of every blizzard. No songs of her life, no books or poetry to go along with her misery, just a quiet wasting away, and that was all she wanted.

She did not want to be the Kingslayer's whore. She did not want to have fifteen children with blonde hair and green eyes all named Tywin. She did not want to live on a hot island and be known, precisely, as the Kingslayer's whore. She did not wish to belong to any man, nonetheless Jaime Lannister, sister-fucker and kiss-stealer and king-killer. They were disgusting, vile creatures who did not care about her own well being– they only cared on how she could benefit them, whether it was selling her off or taking from her things she could never get back.

In that moment, she decided what she would be forced to do.

* * *

The night before, she had an odd dream. Instead of the one she had the day her and Ser Jaime had met, it was cold. Bitterly so, like Winterfell in the deep winter, wind gusting against her cheeks and rubbing them raw, eyes watering and hands numb. As far as the eye could see, it was a blank wide space, remote and figureless, only her and the blue snow-light falling onto the drifts marked with paw-prints. In the distance, a frost-shattered summit. Suddenly, inside of her, there was some primordial force that made her want to climb that mountain. Be the best climber this world had ever seen. Befriend a snowbear. Live in a cave near the tip-top, listen to the wind every day, shiver and enjoy the silence, slowly decompose into the rock. No damp heat, no cliffs with lion heads, no babes, nothing. Just her, and sometimes, her snowbear friend.

She took it for what it was worth.

She refused to eat, even though the King wanted to have a wedding breakfast, instead returning to the library in the daylight to put away her books, at peace with herself and what she wanted her life to be. Running her fingers over the withered spines, she felt connected to everything. To herself, to the world, to the bitter glory that would await her. No extensive commentary, no lucid theology. Just bending, reaching, stirring the pot. In a few minutes, spare moments would never be taken for granted. They would be a rare commodity and she hardly thought she could handle such a thing. Edlynn felt very silly for contemplating suicide earlier, but it wasn't a terrible dream. They say you must live for something. People don't live just to keep on living. If there were no weirwood trees, no bright, empty skies, no wild blueberries, there would be no need to note her.

Before noon, Sansa and a gaggle of handmaidens pulled her from the library, because Sansa knew her sister better than Edlynn would ever accept, and she knew good and well that Edlynn was a horrible recluse who distanced herself from everyone in some pathetic search for freedom. The women brought her back to the Sept outside of the castle, and sat her down in a decrepit room where they began frantically attending to her hair, Sansa coaching her on what would happen in the wedding as though they both hadn't been taught the same royal rules and regulations, Arya grumbling on the floor. She felt dirty and ugly and insisted that Sansa put the veil over her face, whether she liked it or not. The dress was too pretty for her, much too elegant for someone like her. She felt like the corset and the dress was a numb chrysalis that began to develop around her, and if she wasn't careful, she was afraid she would be semi-comatose,baked into a hardened shell, breathless and mind-numbing. Beautiful lace, a long train, pearly white against her skin. She didn't want to look at it. She didn't want anyone to see her like this.

So, she wore her shame like the wedding veil, and waited.

Weddings always started with the Septon reading from a book, the groom at his shoulder, and soon enough, she would be lead down the aisle by her lord father, wearing a grimace on his face. They walked side by side, and there, Jaime stood. A shadow, wreathed in the judgment of darkened cathedrals, bloodied rose gardens, sacramental souls lying scattered on the floor. Her father nodded at him, and Jaime nodded back, and soon, he took his seat next to his other daughters.

She did not listen to any of the words. Nothing felt right. It felt like losing everything she had worked for. It felt like it was destroying her, without protection, _together_ and fragile. When Jaime removed her veil, she tried to tell him with just her eyes. The expression on her face which overruled all the others was one of pleading. Pleading, _feel. feel._ All her acting demanded feeling. What she acts she is. Because she is vulnerable, she is constantly hurt. His own face did not change. She wanted death more than anything in the world.

"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection." She frowned. Jaime took off the initial cloak draped on her shoulders, with the simple yet proud sigil of House Stark, and put his own deep red Lannister cloak on her back.

"My lords, my ladies, we stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Now, give me your hands." He tied the ribbon around their joined hands at the wrist, and she felt tears welling in her eyes. "Let it be known that Edlynn of House Stark, and Jaime of House Lannister, are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder. Look upon each other and say the words," the Septon began. She closed her eyes and refused to stare at her new husband.

"Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger…" They said together. Then, she whispered, "I am his and he is mine. From this day, until the end of my days."

 _With this kiss, I pledge my love._ He kissed her, and she stood obsolete once more. She hated how transparent, heartbreaking she was at times. Jaime casted her a look, one she knew said he himself would be much too afraid to be so vulnerable. But she peeled herself lately, and felt rough wool rubbing against her frail skin, blood dripping down her body when they both turned to the audience, hearing deafening cheers from their families.

Then, she was carried off to the dining hall by Jaime, where they would spend the entire remainder of the day eating and entertaining. Course after course, dishes came, and she spent a majority of her time eating and frowning like a petulant child– first, salads of all kinds, thick soups with lovely breads; then, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon, and mushrooms with boiled beans, mutton roasted with leeks and carrots served with mashed yellow turnips in butter, trout cooked in a crust of crushed almonds, and some fifty more main courses that flyed in and out of the hall; and finally, pastries, cream swans, spun-sugar unicorns, spiced honey biscuits, and apple crisps all for dessert, until she was incredibly drunk and trying to convince Jaime to bed her early if only to get her out of her corset. That was the only good thing about the whole dilemma, the food, because King's Landing was the richest place she had ever been to, and for royalty, they only served the best. She had drank the entire kingdom's supply of sweet plum wine in some pathetic effort to make herself feel better, and Jaime watched her, but, as she assumed, he didn't care enough or didn't bother stopping her. Maybe he thought it'd be easier to have his way with her when she wasn't lucid.

The ribald, frankly crass practice of bedding would have been revolting to her completely sober and melancholic, but, while drunk, Edlynn wanted more than anything to get it over with, be impregnated with his child on the first try, never have to be forced to do it again under worse circumstances. The men, though she was young and she hardly thought herself to be good-looking, rambunctiously took the time to kick her in the back to keep her still to untie her corset, ridding her of her wedding dress, her slip, shoes and everything, until they were only groping her and pushing her into the chamber. There, inside, Jaime stood, devoid of much of his wedding apparel, barely clinging to his breeches.

Even drunk, she had the audacity to act bashful. Her cheeks bloomed with colour, staring up at him, her new husband, a right asshole who she planned on leaving sooner than later. For now, she thought it would be best to find some way to endure it.

"How…" Edlynn fumbled, coughing uncomfortably. "How shall we proceed?"

"However you wish," he was quick to reply, grinning as her blush brightened, travelling down her neck, down, down, down; Jaime extended his hand, tugging her closer to him like the other night when he had kissed her in the corridor and she was left shaking and confused. Their lips touched again and she was shaking again, though less erratically as the first time, and she forced herself to wrap her arms around his middle and try to force him to smother her form.

This time, though, there was no cloth barrier, and she jumped when his warm hand met the cold skin of her waist. She was always cold, she just never noticed, because King's Landing was much hotter than what she was used to. He let his hands wander up her sides, until he cupped her small breasts and could swipe his thumb over her nipples. She was bare from the top to her hips, her skirts bunched up around her thighs, and suddenly, he wanted more.

"May I take this off?" he asked in a harsh whisper, bunching her shift at her sides. Silently, Edlynn nodded.

"Will… will you take your breeches off?" she murmured shyly, staring up at him through her lashes. She felt so small all of a sudden, so tiny that she could fit in the palm of her hand, the picture of innocence asking to see his cock. And, as he should, he took off it all, smallclothes and breeches together.

Her eyes trailed down, heated and curious; she reached a thin hand out, and he doesn't move, not until her fingers circled the head, thump swiping over it; then, she stroked a single finger down. A single twitch.

"It's… lively," her hand jerks away when he groans, and gives him a sheepish look. "I didn't know… I– will it even fit?"  
He choked out a laugh, "I can assure you, dearest, we will manage." She rolled her eyes, not particularly caring for his jests nor the term of endearment. _Dearest my ass._ Bitterly, she slipped off her own small clothes, revealing a tuft of dark curls, and soon enough, he had her pinned down on the massive bed, thrusting into her in sweet abandon.

She refused to make a sound. Didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting her. When he was finished, he sighed, and brought her to his chest.

"Now why did you have to do a thing like that?" she asked him again. This time, he didn't leave her, but he didn't want to answer.

"Because, sweet Edie. Just because. You're too good for this world, you know."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are. You like quaint things and your father told me you wish to live a quaint, queer life, alone. So, well, I understand that you loathe me, because I've taken this from you. But, in this world, sweet, you cannot have a quaint life. Kill or be killed, no living in the swamp, reading your life away. One day, if I die prematurely, I'll make sure I leave you enough money to build a little hut, to live comfortably for the rest of your quaint life." The whole time, he was playing with her stray hairs that escaped her braid, staring not at her but at her being. It felt entirely too personal. She wanted to melt into the bedsheets, away from him.

"Do those funds include a small sliver for each of our fifteen babes named Tywin?"

"Oh, of course not. Those little shits aren't your responsibility. Unless you'd like to be an overbearing mother. You didn't think I planned on dying anytime soon, did you?"

"No, but the optimistic part of me was hoping." He laughed then, though she wasn't really joking.

"Ah, well, in any case, as they say, _a Lannister always pays his debts._ Already, my bill is up for embarrassing you at your family's feast, kissing you in the corridor, on top of wedding and bedding you. That itself must be a good amount of gold, yes?"

"Well, if you're planning on treating this entire arrangement like prostitution more than a political arrangement, then, sure, I would never turn down a lump sum for my pain and suffering."


	7. Chapter 7

The day she fully realised what a massive mistake she had made, it was the day the king died.

According to Jaime, who only told her of what happened in snippets from that moment onward, was that her Lord Father had been ordered by the king himself to kill one bastard of said king's many, as well as the _thing'_ s mother. It stung a bit, to have someone, a little baby, be referred to as a _thing_ rather than the fruit of the father's unforgiving loins, who came and went as he pleased, because he was the king and kings did as they do on a regular basis. She had been directly told this much by the word of Eddard himself, who had informed her of his whereabouts for the day, and told her sisters if they desired anything, to go to their new Lady Lannister, a title she dreaded each day that passed. It had lost its ring, like a golden bell tolling that slowly became more irritating than anything else. And, almost immediately afterwards, everything had gone steadily downward from that point.

In the morning, with a warm rain pelting down upon them like knives crashing from the heavens, a dark, starless sky casting shadows below. In the chambers that Jaime and her shared sparingly, where she dreamt of drowning and smothering him in his sleep, she had been awoke by the blunt handle of a sword smashing into her forehead, and had promptly been forced to fall back asleep again. After that, according to Jaime, he had slung her on the back of his mare, flinging her arms around her shoulders, leaning her up on his back, and they had travelled with a pack of lions to find her father, the lone wolf, at one of Littlefinger's brothels in the city. The rain had thoroughly soaked her by that point, raindrops dripping into her eyes, matting her hair onto her face, and when rivers of black water began to run down the hill, in a sea of metal, ringmail over leather, gauntlets and greaves, steel helms with golden lions on the crests, her father had become a craven.

At least, this is what he told her. She did not awaken until her father's horse slipped in the streets.

He was a proper bloody mess, Jaime told her. She couldn't see anything very clearly, raindrops weaving into her eyelashes, wetting her eyes before she had the chance to cry. Then, before she could manage to get the tears out, her father's mangled body was thrown onto Jory Cassel's horse, heading back for the castle in a futile effort to sew together the apple-core doll that her Lord Father had been reduced to. In one eye that had cleared up, the other still in a haze, still dreaming, she thought she might become the Mother Above, that the black sky was a sign of a holy place, a dark place, a place of life and strength, no knowledge or words. Not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood. The air smelled bitter and acrid and rusted, like blood, like the winter. She missed the cold so much. She missed who her father used to be even more. Everything felt empty and cold and metallic, like Jaime's armour, like the feeling of loss. So, for the rest of the day, she clenched her eyes shut and willed herself to fall back asleep.

When she awoke the second time, they were on his mare, trotting through a dark, misty forest. There was a thick fog hanging over the air, the cold rain mixed with the humid air, and her cheek felt sticky against Jaime's back.

"Where… Where are we going, Jaime?" she asked very quietly, hardly sure he even heard her.

"Casterly Rock," he replied simply, mouth drawn into a thin line. "We were to travel there soon enough, anyways. This all just… Advanced our journey, so to speak. No royal carriages, though, I'm afraid, my lady."

"Don't call me that, you pompous ass!" She protested, suddenly all too coherent, slamming her hands on the back of his armour. It rattled satisfying, and she kept on pounding her fists into it until he forced the mare to stop.

"You're _my_ wife, Edlynn, and therefore, you are _my_ problem. Now, if you'd like to walk the rest of the way there, I'd be more than obliged to let you off and be as stubborn as you'd like to be _on your own_." For a moment, she was tempted to. Realising it was rhetorical, and that he would rather have her hung from a tree by her own smallclothes, she only harrumphed and layed her cheek onto his back once again.

"You're lucky I'm not wearing any shoes, you ass," she murmured.

"Is 'ass' the only insult you have, my lady? Because, truthfully, I have heard far, _far_ worse." She grew angry again at that.

"What else should I call you then?! Kingslayer? Righteous fool? _Sister-fucker_?" She hissed, and suddenly, once again, the mare stopped, but she had anticipated it before it had happened that time, so she didn't fall backwards.

"Where did you hear that–?"

"I'm not an idiot, Jaime, I _listen._ The entire kingdom _listens._ I don't want to be here any more than you do, you _prick_ , if my foolish lord-father hadn't married us, I'd be _happy_! Go– go back to King's Landing and go back to your queen-sister's slimy loins! Leave me here to die, for the Gods sake!" She shouted, her face splotched with red, quickly becoming furious with him. Jaime, however, did not have the same visceral reaction as his lady-wife. He only began to smile, and then laugh, throwing his head back and kicking his mare into a trot once more. He didn't say anything further.

"Those… those children aren't even the king's, are they?! They _must_ be yours! They're not even royalty!" Her voice cracked, but she kept on going, feeling angry tears welling in her eyes. "You never cared about me! And you never will either! I'm just some girl you got put with for– for some damned alliance! Leave me here, please, Jaime! I don't want to go with you!"

"Well, that's far too bad, my lady, because we're already halfway there, and I don't feel like going back when my head might very well be on a stake–" He started, but she was quick to stop him.

"I can live with that!"

"Oh, of course _you_ can, but I'll be dead, and there won't be any knight in shining gold armour to protect you, now would there?" He snickered, and Edlynn grew increasingly more upset.

"You… you _prick_! You asshole! You sister-fucking, king-slaying, purity-stealing _asshole_! How… how dare you! I want to go back and I want to go _now_! I'm not going to let you sit me down and fuck me to your heart's desire so I can pump out more children riddled with madness like Joffrey! I want to go _home_!" She screamed in his ear, furious, not particularly caring if she seemed like a child having a tantrum.

"We all want in life, but, alas, we never receive," he replied happily. Suddenly, there was a heavy sadness that pressed onto her chest, making tears erupt from her eyes until she was sobbing into the metal of his back, shoulders rocking with sobs. He did not bother to stop the mare that time.

"Why… why do you hate me so much, Jaime?" she whispered through her tears.

"I do not hate you, Edlynn. I don't think I could manage to do such a thing. You're far too good for me to do so, even though you yell and hit me and call me such names. What you _are,_ however, at the moment, is a nuisance, and I'd rather like you to calm down before I do kick you off this horse and leave you here to fend for yourself," he said quietly, finally showing emotion. That was all she really wanted in the first place, so, instead she tried to calm herself down, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her nightgown.

"Why do you _not_ hate me?" she asked again, suddenly shy again, like when they had first met and she was still scared of her own shadow. She still was, but that was another story in itself.

"Because, dear Edie, you are a sweet, young girl. What's not to like?"

"You… Do you think I'm just some daft little girl? I'm not even something good to look at!"

"Well, Edie, you're pretty, in a way. Like the moon, you have a certain round stupidity to you. But does that stop artists and poets alike from admiring it? Of course not. Now, I am neither of those things, but I still admire its beauty. That is what we are. You're a beautiful, simple thing that has been stuck with a fool left only to admire you, because there is little other purpose I have to you other than being a thorn in your side. Perhaps you'd be happier if you were with that Tyrell boy– word around the kingdom is that, well, he's what Robert calls a _bum bandit._ But, I suppose, if you were happy, then he'd be happy too. Your Lord Father, however, probably wouldn't be, but that's on him, huh?" Jaime spoke, almost to himself, talking on and on about things that only confused and began to anger her once again.

"Jaime," she began with a heaving sigh. "You are the most infuriating man I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. This here is why I hoped that we could have done the safer route and gone by fancy royal carriage to Casterly Rock– I hoped we could stave this entire thing off until we got there so you could only then start resenting me until the day I outlive you and I finally get my wish of running off to the bogs or whatever stupid thing you told me the night of our bedding." He laughed a bit at that, but she was serious and decidedly told him so. "You think I am jesting? Gods, no, I mean it. I was praying that you would realise I was an ugly, stupid little girl when we got there, so then I could still make my place into your father's frigid heart and hopefully kill you in your sleep."

"Well, Edlynn, without insulting me with cruel names, what do _you_ think of _me_?" he asked in response, not acknowledging her murder plot, though he was sure she would go through with it one day eventually.

"I think you're handsome, because if I didn't, I would most certainly be blind. Aside from that, you're cruel, callous, a whore-monger whose only whore is your own sister, as well as being a rude, arrogant, dishonest, disgusting man who I resent deeply already. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

"Oh, by far not. I think you can do worse. Really, just reign terror upon me. Say the meanest things your little heart can muster," He grinned, though there was no twinkle in his eyes, no humour in him, but she felt no remorse for her words. It was the truth. He had probably gone his entire life going without someone telling him who he really was to his face, and she was destined to change that.

"You told me I was ugly and stupid moments ago. I do not regret what I've said."

"I wouldn't want you to. I'm sure you've been told all your life that you're ugly, maybe not stupid. You can't tell me I haven't hurt your feelings. It only makes sense that you strive to hurt mine in response. It's how people are. You always want revenge. Justice, whatever you wish to call it." She fell silent for a moment, but he took it as a small victory until she found her words.

"I'm not shocked by what you've said itself, only that you managed to conjugate that all on your own. Jaime, as _your_ wife, I'm entitled to tell you that you, my lord-husband, are a massive buffoon and I wish to only let you know this fact. I called you those things because it's the truth. I have nothing to gain from you telling me something I already knew, I've had Sansa tell me I look like a donkey since she came out of our mother's womb– you telling me the exact same thing affects me little, Jaime."

"Well, lady-wife, I suppose you're not as daft as I thought you to be. You're at least smarter than Joffrey, but that's hardly saying much, in hindsight." He snorted, and she slapped the back of his armour hard, making him jolt forward slightly and the mare stumble. "Damn it, woman, stop hitting me!"

"I'm far smarter than that little oaf you sired, you rat bastard," she sneered.

"That is what I said, lady-wife," he gritted out. "If you would listen to me, you would know so."

"I _have_ been listening to you, you blithering idiot. I've been listening to you for the last, oh, half an hour calling me an ugly moron of a girl– _after_ you attacked my father!"

"Oh," Jaime said lamely. "I had hoped you had forgotten about that."  
"As soon as we get to Casterly Rock, I hope you know I'm locking myself away from you and never coming out again until I decide it's finally the right time to murder you in your sleep."

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 _author's note: hello everyone! this is very short but i just only wanted to put in a little bit of jaime/edlynn interaction before her big break comes in! i've had a bit of writer's block with this story, but i wanted also to tell everyone i haven't abandoned it yet! also, if you want to, check out my hunger games story i have up as well! i have quite a few chapters of that already written out as well, so feel free to comment / follow / whatever on that too! goodbye for now!_


	8. Chapter 8

What felt like hours of endless riding, to the point her legs grew sore and she spent much of the time cracking her joints, frowning up at the endless sky, they went on for a long while without incident, her refusing to say anything more, rather not in fear but in frustration. Edlynn was disgusted with herself over the entire incident in the city every time the thought crossed her mind, fluttering about before her very eyes as she silently fumed and cursed her father from her head. He should have listened to her from the beginning; Jaime hardly cared about anything below the surface of what soft corporality he had once believed her all to be, none of the messy anxieties of human experience nor the irresolute contradictions that, possibly, made him as frustrated with her as much as she was with him.

"How did you ever find out about Cersei and I?" Jaime asked very suddenly. The entire ride there, she had been almost completely silent, though stewing in anger, her cheek resting on the hard metal of his armour, and she jerked up to stare at him astoundingly.

"And _you_ were the one to call me a foolish little girl. Practically the entire kingdom has heard of the rumours, but you were the one to confirm them for me," she huffed.

"How did you know they were true?"

"I didn't. But you had a very visceral reaction to it, so now I know." Edlynn paused, frowning down at his back. "It isn't that difficult to figure out. All Baratheon children have black hair, no matter what. The royal children look more like you than they look like anyone else. But I doubt the rest of the Kingdom is wise enough to realise as such. The smallfolk are far too busy making it day by day to have any worries of the elite, and the royals are far too busy keeping the peace to shove their noses into the historical records."

He made a dull noise of acknowledgement, but said nothing further. Once again, a thin layer of silence stretched out between them. Again, Jaime was the one to speak.

"I do regret insulting you as I did, Edlynn," he started, and she spat onto the dirt.

"Shove your regrets, you prick," she sneered, and she could practically hear him roll his eyes.

"In another time, you might be considered a mystic, but in this one, you're frankly a very rude little girl, lady-wife, and if I'm to be honest with you, I find that when this little journey is over, I will have seldom any regrets of abandoning you in the hovel that is my childhood home. And, hopefully, I'll perish on my journeys onward, so as I will never have to hear you insult me when I attempt to apologise, so at the very least, you will get something out of this marriage that will satisfy you."

"Oh, how _generous_ of you, Jaime, so _unlike_ you," Edlynn griped.

"Well, if you learn anything about this awful decision I've made, it's to never expect anything from anyone else, lest you be disappointed."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my lord-husband, but I had absolutely no expectations for you as my husband, and yet, you still managed to let me down. When I die, if I end up hanging myself in the bell-tower or something equally as dramatic to match my certain flair for divine anger, I want you to be the one to bury me within the ground, just so you can let me down one last time. What do you think?"

"If you would _listen_ to me instead of verbally taunting me every second you open your mouth, maybe for once, you might not particularly feel as antagonistic as you do now," Edlynn snorted immediately at Jaime's words, and she could feel the flesh beneath his armour heat with his barely unleaded fury. For a long second, she hoped that he would genuinely stop the horse and beat her to death into the dirt, leave her there to die, and go to Casterly Rock all by himself. It would save her a lot of trouble and moral conflict.

"Well, go on, Jaime, I'm waiting for this so-called apology you were going to give me out of the bottom of your cold, dead heart." He let out a heavy sigh, still never even attempting to look over his shoulder at her, and began.

"Edlynn… That night, before the feast, your father informed me he was planning with Robert to marry both you and your sister off. That was the real reason I gave you that book, but I realise you are not a stupid little girl, so I presume you know as much. I believe the real reason here that I am so… Angered by your very existence is that, quite honestly, you resemble something deep seeded in women men do not frequently accept nor acknowledge.

"Your lord-father informed me a number of times that you were adamantly against the very morality behind marriage, love, things of that nature, and a large part of me expected to dissolve that notion you possessed that I would abolish your freedoms in the name of a loveless binding contract that states you push out all of my babies– all named Tywin, yes– and the fact of the matter is, as soon as you began to talk to me openly without the pleasantries you put on when I've got my tongue shoved down your windpipe, I realised you have this belief ingrained into your entire being, who you are as an heir, a woman, everything. I hadn't done much of anything to change such a belief; however, I'm sure I did reinforce it wholeheartedly by calling you names and telling you that you would be much happier if I were dead."

"I'm going to stop you right there, Jaime," she began, and he held in a groan as she continued. "Let me say right now– fantastic thesis, I'm sure, you _surely_ should go to a maester with your first hand research. But, first and foremost, you know absolutely nothing about me. The sheer fact you presume I care enough for form an opinion about you, aside from the fact you violated my bodily autonomy and insist on bothering me right before you plop me off onto your father's doorstep like an orphan, is astounding to say the least. It really displays your inherent egoism, truly. Regardless, that in itself, was nowhere near an apology, just your way of rationalising insulting me for telling you the truth.

"Aside from that, I would like to tell you that those pleasantries you mistook me to provide only you were the result of my upbringing as a higher class woman of a well-known family. You, of course, would not understand such a thing, because you are a man, and men are not taught of pleasantries, nor of grace or delicate belonging. You are taught to fight and curse and talk about women like me like we are beneath you and are the same as the horse shit that stains your shoe. The fact of the matter was, when I sat there like the well-trained girl I am, a being of stoic countenance that only speaks when spoken to, you were under the presumption I am nothing more than that: just a cunt with a head attached to it with a mouth that only told you things I knew you would like to hear. You are a wealthy, foolish man who has little care for anyone who does not directly benefit you, and you were only kind to me when you saw me as nothing more than that," Edlynn finished, feeling bile rise in the back of her throat.

"You reacted promptly when I informed you I had immense distaste for you and everything you stand for as a person, because that was not what you wanted to hear. Quite honestly, if I had been given the choice, you are only right in saying I would give up everything if it meant I could live alone and die alone. You are also right in suggesting I might just have chosen the Knight of Flowers rather than you, regardless of what you may call him in seedy corners, because at the very least, he would have respected who I am as an individual rather than something warm for you to sink into, something that made you feel less guilty than the space between your own sister's thighs."

Jaime said nothing, and that was the way they rode off to Casterly Rock. Occasionally, the horse would give a quiet neigh, and even then, neither of them said a single word, not to each other, not to the world. Edlynn leaned back on the saddle and refused to touch him for hours as they continued to ride towards what she knew was the end of the universe. Edlynn Stark would have rather died rather than get old with him. And that was what she thought about. A quiet starve to death. A short sentence. Anything rather than a long sentence, a life sentence. Death sentences were short and very unabashedly patriarchal. Life sentences weren't. They went on and on, full of lovelessness and confusing references and getting old. She noticed that, too, after a long while. It felt as though her only two options were accepting her unfortunate situation or death.

There was something out there, something that touched the tip of her touch but retreated backwards off the edge of nothing in fear she would taste it too suddenly and want it in its entirety.

She couldn't sleep, even when night fell, and she knew by the unsteady sound of Jaime's breathing and the fact he was still far too proud, he would never stop the horse and set up a makeshift camp. So, they continued on, while Edlynn idly contemplated what else there possibly could be for her. Faking her death was always an option instead of committing the ultimate act of self-destruction. Leaving nothing but a dying woman in her wake to act as her own. Mutilation instead of full consumption. Venturing out into the great beyond was always an option, as well, though she knew for a fact if Jaime had it his way, he would make sure she never knew peace for the rest of her life, however long that would be.

When they finally arrived at the castle, handmaidens and stable boys alike came to greet them, and subtly, Edlynn glanced towards the array of horses, never forgetting escape routes and what might lay beyond them. Jaime quite nearly threw her off the horse, leaving her to fumble with herself before spitting back at him and following a petrified young girl to her chambers, far away from Jaime's old room. Edlynn scoffed at the girl, who was only about Sansa's age, until she bursted into tears and fled, and eventually, thereby came Jaime, stomping up the stairs like a petulant child, ordering her to follow him to introduce her to his own lord-father.

"For the love of everything that is holy, _please_ put on your _mistaken pleasantries_ for the sake of my father," he snidely put in last minute.

Tywin was not a nice man, that much she knew surely of. He possessed none of the comeliness his two children shared, yet held himself as though he were a god among men, scarlet cape and all. She had heard and read plenty of stories past that portrayed him as a astute yet ruthless, controlling man, and his glazing eyes appraising her as though she were a trinket being examined for its worth made her come to the conclusion that, just as it usually was, most Westerosi nonfiction was rooted in truth. He repaid debts of loans taken from his passed father, and she was sure of the fact he did not doubt her marriage to his son as an act of patronage to her lord-father, which he anticipated would either result in an heir or a wife smart enough to control the house when he passed, just as his father had done. Though, in all aspects aside from physical, a true knight in every sense of the word, Jaime was incompetent; she, too, appraised him, a frown creasing her face, hoping he would be as stupefied by the thought that she could think for herself as his son apparently was.

Because she was a good daughter, she schooled her expression into something indicating happiness, curtsying appropriately.

"And _you_ … Surely, must be the Stark girl I have heard so much about," Tywin finally said. He began to circle her just as a lion does its prey. Sizing her up for dinner. "You bear a strong resemblance to your father– are you as much of a fool as he is?"

Almost immediately, her spine straightened, head cocking up to meet his eyes with full force. Gold flakes glimmered with mirth behind his unblinking stare, poking her, waiting for her to show anger, something exciting. Instead, she merely frowned.

"My lord, I am aware my father has made debatable decisions in his lifetime, but he is most certainly the farthest thing from a fool. You might only assume him to be a fool if you have something against an unwavering moral code, but, well, I have learned over the course of my lifetime that assumptions make for misconceptions, of which I believe many men to possess."

"Bold-mouthed and with a double-edged sword of shame and indignation, I see," Tywin said shortly. Something about him indicated he would refuse to elaborate on what he said, even if she asked, and silently, she accepted it as a win, despite the fact she had truthfully no idea what he meant by that, aside from the fact she was merely defending her own father.

Even if he died soon for whatever insolence they all believed him to have committed, she would defend him until the day she died. Even her mother, that shrew of a woman who threw herself headfirst into a life of oppression; even Robb, that noble idiot; even Sansa, through her numerous faults; even Jon–

Jon. That was it! A heart in her head, that was what the memories she had of him were. And somehow, she had forgotten the fact he was somewhere where she had almost completely forgotten existed. The solitude and utter abandonment of civilized society was so tempting to Edlynn that quite nearly made her shout aloud. That was where she was meant to go, beyond the Wall, into the far recesses of the cold, barren wasteland, where there was nobody else around to inhabit her space, nothing to change about herself so others would be delighted by her presence. She had ceased the activity in regards to Sansa, had stopped caring for what the girl believed to be the right way of living as a woman, and felt the liberating sensation of watching a young lady dissolve this faith to spend familial time with her and Arya, if only for a short time, without spite. And she had done the same with Jaime, had given up on being a different individual for the sake of pleasing her lord-husband, and felt the same liberation of having him sit on his (literal) high horse, contemplating on whether or not the same ideals of womanhood were correct, and if he was to blame for her resentment towards him, taking responsibility for his actions for the first time in his treasonous life. She suspected she could, forevermore, ignore these ridiculous aspects of life for an existence surrounded solely by existing.

She hated almost everything in life and if she stole a horse and fled as north as she could, she might be better. Less unhappy, less angry all the time. There would be no need to control herself there, because there was nobody around for her to care about doing so, and controlling herself only made her more awkward, unhappier, angrier, everything. She watched with silent elation as Tywin whisked his son off to the study, leaving her to return immediately to her chambers, plotting something she did not know fully of. That night, curled up inside herself in a new place she refused to familiarise herself with, she dreamt that night of leading the life of a nobody, a waif, virtually invisible. Somebody else entirely. No lion's head upon the cliff, no babes, no dry heat. Just a desolate silence that drew her to a not entirely unpleasant madness.

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 _a/n: endless apologies for the fact i forgot i ever published this in the first place, and some more on top of the fact i somehow made a game of thrones fanfiction into a gender studies essay. please leave some more comments, i thrive off positive affirmation. stayed tuned & hopefully i'll be more consistent with updating in the near future. probably won't, but we can all pray for something, can't we?_


	9. Chapter 9

_a/n: i'm sorry about how late this is. really, i mean it. i lost a lot of interest in the things i used to like a lot which is why i kind of abandoned this even though it's probably one of the better things i've ever written. i've caught myself up to what's been happening in the show lately and i think i might want to take this into a different direction entirely, but i don't know yet... please leave a comment or two on what you think i should do with edlynn, it would help me a lot in the process. right now, i'm thinking i want to keep tormund at the back of my mind as a symbol of her exaltation away from "civilized" life, but i'm not really sure how to go about that. on the other hand, i was thinking about sandor... but frankly i don't have time to unpack all that. anyways, here's what i wrote today in a frenzy because i knew i'd forget about this if i didn't sit down and write it all out right now. hope you enjoy, and please follow if you enjoy the story still (and review!)._

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Months passed.

That was a sudden realisation to her, that a large amount of time had passed without her consenting for it to happen, to move on without her. Edlynn had no contact with the outside world; whoever came into Casterly Rock was her unfitting companion– handmaidens who were scared of her and her apparent mysticism that Jaime had informed her terrified the mortal human to quiver, stable boys who were enamoured with her urge for freedom, knights and bannermen and everyone in between. Lord Tywin was a cruel host but a willing one nonetheless, and the two of them spent numerous silent dinners together without incident. She only realised it after sitting up in her bed, staring at the ceiling, realising that it had been three weeks.

The first week, Jaime was still in the castle, and he had spent the entire time forcing himself onto her, because if she wasn't with child in the next month, Tywin would hate her even more than he already did. It hurt and she wanted nothing more than to be strong enough to push him off her, but she never was, and after the first few times, she let it happened, didn't think there was any purpose in struggling other than to make him even angrier than he got when she tried talking him out of it. After seven nights straight of the same thing she would refuse to talk about after it happened, Jaime returned back to ignoring her just as she wished.

"There is no such thing as love, Edlynn. Only the physical need for intercourse and the practical need for a life companion. Do you know _how_ I know true love isn't real?" Tywin asked quietly, yet his voice filled the entire hall. Carefully, she nodded.

"I'm sure you have met Tyrion. He is a disgrace to this house and, because of him, I am forced to put the only son I will ever be proud of in harm's way as a commander to half the host of the westerlands. I know love is a fallacy because of the fact that, if love is so all powerful as tales of romance said it is, I would unconditionally love all of my children, but I cannot, because one of them took away the only semblance of affection I have ever had. Even then, she did not love me, because she was not mine to love even before we were wed. I believe this is also the case with you and Jaime, is it not?"

Before she could respond, he kept on going, frowning at his plate, "Even in your marriage, which was a poor choice on Robert's part, I can tell that neither of you… _love_ each other in that way. But despite the fact I am under the impression you believe me to despise you for entrapping my son, I realise this was none of your doing, for every time he is anywhere near you, you flinch as though he struck you. But that is the way of our world, child. Marriages out of alliance, heirs, death, ascension, in that order, cyclically, until time itself ends or someone decides to change our ways we are so stubbornly stuck in…" he trailed off suddenly, staring longingly up at the ceiling of the hall as though willing for one of the gods above to tell him that he was right, that all of this was the truth and not some carefully webbed fallacy they had all weaved together like a web meant to entrap little girls into some horrible, horrible game like Edlynn thought.

Jaime was off doing something Edlynn didn't want to know about. She didn't really care all that much, couldn't bring herself to care anymore. He came back to the castle every once in a while to discuss things with Tywin until his lord-father appointed him with some military position and he came back less and less frequently until she rarely saw him at all. Not that she would complain about it– the less she saw of Jaime, the better, but it still made her heart ache at the thought that he could easily die out wherever he was and made her swell up with an unprecedented happiness she hadn't experienced since she was told she was to be married off. It was a very bitter thought, to be excited at the prospect of her husband's death, but when he was a Lannister, there was very little else for her to be excited about in regards to said husband. A few days after her confusing discussion with Tywin, she awoke to find herself ill and was dragged into the bathroom by her handmaiden, green in the face and sallow, gagging and crying.

The thought of pregnancy made her disgusted. Violently, that morning, she retched emptily, throwing up what little dignity she had left, only to wipe her mouth and hear her handmaiden, the third one in a month, murmur quietly about how Edlynn must be with child by now. It was an utterly repulsive thought, to balloon up with the spawn of Jaime, the son of something dirty and improper that made her get so, so upset at the memory. All the nights she had strewn herself onto the bed and allowed it to happen without fully knowing what she was allowing, the passively aggravated comments he had thrown at her, it all came to fruition to the point she was throwing up almost every morning for a week; the smell of food made her repulsed and she began to fast regardless of anyone's warnings. Maybe if she starved the baby out, when it hemorrhaged and died inside of her, maybe it would grow septic and kill her too. It was a grotesque thought, but it was all she prayed for every night. There was no godswood but the feeling of being watched in the cold night of Winterfell still resounded with her where she prayed at the foot of her bed each evening. Every single night, it was a constant stream of pleas to every god there was, the old gods Old Nan told them about, the children of the forest, the wildings, the Seven, the gods of before time had began, the gods that would live on after there was nothing left in their world, the spirit within everyone and everything, she prayed to it, staring up at the moon, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did, and when her sickness didn't go away, she started to give up.

Her name day came and went without comment, with Lord Tywin apathetically gifting her with a journal and a very simple necklace, a family heirloom, with one little nugget of silver attached to the chain. It was modest and she thought it was what she wished had happened, something tiny and insignificant enough that she didn't feel the need to pay off any debts Tywin was entitled to by the oversight of her father…

Her father, who was most certainly dead, in the midst of what she assumed was a war. She didn't know, couldn't have possibly known the difference out of just a few words heard from Tywin and his counsel when he didn't know she was listening. It helped to be sly at Casterly Rock, she noticed; the Lannisters were known to be cunning and with all her Stark nobility, she could not force herself to be as such, but instead, she slunk around just as she always did, in the corners of the library nobody had touched in hundreds of years, the shadows of the hallways, not meaning to hear things but inevitably listening when it occurred. Eventually, she grew tired of hearing about the battles in passing, somewhere in the riverlands where Jaime had taken their army, and instead, returned to the peace and sanctity of Casterly Rock's library. It was a modest area, one that had been cultivated over the course of the last fifty or so years when Tywin had brought the house back to its former exaltative glory, but she thought it was almost as good as her own back in Winterfell and took it as the only place she could be alone in. Everywhere else, the other Lannister siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews roamed about to the point she had no solitude other than in the dark recesses of the dusty study.

One day, with the diary Tywin had gifted her at hand, Edlynn plopped herself down quietly, furtively dipping a pen in ink and going to write her thoughts she couldn't tell anyone else about. Her handwriting was neat and curly, letters joining together in holy matrimony across the page: _I am so often alone with my thoughts that the need for a journal during my time here becomes necessary and I find that it all translates naturally onto the parchment. Now, I am well again temporarily, and I do not yet know if I am pregnant– it terrifies me how often I have thought of what it must like being in that condition. My brother Robb once said that being young for him meant that he could achieve anything; for me, reason tells me there is little I can do outside of nursing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and loving and caring for my horrible husband and my wretched yet inevitable babies, all of which I know is happiness of a kind for some women, but the thought makes me so awfully woeful all the time. I wept just yesterday thinking about a babe growing inside of me… It ebbs and flows like waves, the sadness, the times when I realise just how lonely I am and how I want more than anything to leave here and die in a place I consider my home. I do not know where to go, but I know there must be something out there for me._

One day, in the dead of night, Edlynn fled.

Word had come that Jaime's army had lost, and he was imprisoned by her uncle, Edmure, whom she hadn't seen since childhood and intended to keep it as so, unless he managed to kill Jaime, then she might have considered stopping by for a small visit to show her gratitude. But, as it seemed, he gained more by keeping Jaime alive than killing him right away, which infuriated Tywin to the point she hardly saw him. It was proving, at that point, that life at Casterly Rock was isolating and, in the middle of this war waging around her, utterly insufferable. She spent her days fasting and hoping she could kill the baby inside her before it killed her, until Tywin was informed by her deceitful handmaiden that she had been ill for a month's time now and brought her to the maester, who indeed informed her of her pregnancy. Though, he also told her that she had lost almost three stones in weight and recommended her to go on an exclusively liquid diet to regain the fluids she had lost from her constant nausea that left her throwing up constantly. She felt faint and disgusted that this had happened to her and thought to herself for days on end how defective and wrong it was, that she was with child and her body was rejecting it as much as her mind was.

Before she had made her mind up, she drank the tea. It was a disgusting drink and it hurt so, so badly afterwards, as though she was dying from the inside out, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Jaime wanted a baby even less than she did, if that was possible. He didn't even know about it– he couldn't get cross with her when he was locked up in the riverlands, blissfully unaware of the fact she was suffering day in and day out. The problem was Tywin: he had eyes and ears in every corner of the castle, much to her chagrin (especially when she was the one hearing all the seedy secrets when people didn't think she could hear), and she had to do it in secret. She walked into the forest, found the wormwood and the tansy and the mint, walked back inside, brewed it herself in her room with the door locked, with a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal, and drank it down before she could think twice about it. Edlynn, silently stewing on her bed, hoped briefly that, if it didn't kill the baby, it could at least kill her in the meantime, before she thought it stupid of herself to even think of it in that way.

There was a feral, repulsive part of her that wanted to be both feral and repulsive in the way that made her happy. Childhood summers with Arya, digging in the mud and running through the godswood, climbing trees and making crass jokes with twigs in her hair; she wanted to be a child again without the worries of a woman of class, a gremlin child, covered in grass stains and scrapes and bruises, shooting arrows and practicing her sword-fighting, unabashedly ugly and unclean and hungry and healthy and hearty and lean, full of love and sun warmed strawberries. To feel time stretch forever, only flying when she fell into books, to love insects and sweat and nature once more. She didn't want this anymore. It was a constant play to be pretty and pay rapt attention to things that didn't matter when they would all be dead and act like the docile, demure wife and lady of the house Tywin and Jaime wanted her to be. And Jaime wasn't going to come back anyways, not for a while, anyways, and there was nobody there for her to please anymore. The facade slipped off until she returned to snapping at her handmaiden, who fled and was replaced by a fourth, one of Jaime's distant cousins who was so insignificant to her she refused to learn the girl's name, and she spent her days until she worked up the courage to finally leave planning out her escape.

In her diary, after days of planning, she wrote: _Eventually, my life will be good and clean once again. I will smell the earth after it rains and I will be without odd postures and I will become just as purely myself as I have ever been without the unwarranted relationships that have forced me to become a rigid caricature of who I am. I will have my own private places and spaces and I will keep roaming until I find a place uniquely my own. I have found that, though I have starved myself through this miscarriage, which Tywin was distinctly upset about, being cruel to myself is not revolutionary as men have done this since I was born and will continue to do so until the day I die in self-imposed isolation; I hope that, when I find this place, wherever it may be, that I learn to care for myself and others in the way that is a real protest of the life I have been given. Goodbye for now, journal. Hopefully, nobody finds you in this corner of the room. If someone does, I hope it is in the distant future, where another little girl just like me can find her own reason to be alive._

In the middle of the night, very quietly, Edlynn put on her black cloak, packed her leather satchel full of necessities, and carefully walked out to the stables. A pocket knife, candles, twine, her quilt that had been her direwolf's (whose fate she did not know), bandages, a dagger, her favourite book ( _Passages of the Dead,_ a history of he barrow fields, graves, and tombs of the north, the burials of giants and legendary curses of places where any man who proclaimed himself First King was to become corpse-like), what little money she had, and an extra thick cloak, in case there came the chance she made it all the way north. Walder Frey was a red-headed pageboy who was distantly related to Jaime through his Aunt Genna, who had such an affection for Edlynn that made her feel both amused and saddened that she was manipulating him to get her a horse in exchange for a kiss on the cheek that made his face blush as brightly as his hair. He led out a beautiful mare, who she mounted with a rusted ease and began to set out with one last empty goodbye to the Frey boy.

As it was the only place she knew, Edlynn went north.

It was a difficult beginning, trying to figure out how to survive at the threat of bandits and war happening right in front of her, along with navigation, using her bare instinct and the natural landmarks she had seen on the ride to Casterly Rock with Jaime where they had verbally assaulted one another. Across the Gold Road, they had travelled originally from King's Landing to Lannisport, through to Casterly Rock; she mapped it out in the dirt using a stick, rudimentarily graphing out her geographical knowledge from years of schooling, marking all the places she knew of positively. The Dornish Marches to the far south, the Golden Tooth to the direct north of the road, Riverrun and Harrenhal where she knew to avoid, the Vale of Arryn to the Eyrie, then the Twins, the Neck, the Barrowlands, then, right near the Wolfswood, was Winterfell. Further north, the Wall and the Land of Always Winter…

She didn't know where to go, but she knew there must have been something north. Her home must have something left of it, whatever little that may have been. Robb, her twin brother who she had nothing in common with, or Jon at the wall, her true kin, Bran and baby Rickon still left at Winterfell, while Sansa and Arya, her dearest sisters, had an unknown fate in King's Landing. There was nothing she could do about it without risking her own safety, so Edlynn lived with the grief of that on her face, clear as day.

She knew basic necessities of survival, and had advanced knowledge of flora and fauna, which was enough to keep her fed through her time, which was spent primarily riding without stopping and eventually, when it grew late, she would tie her mare up for the night, climb sturdy trees, and sleep as peacefully as she could. Of course, bandits were never deterred by this, and eventually, when she reached the Tumblestone River, her horse was stolen, leaving her to walk instead the distance towards the Whispering Wood, where she intended to bypass to go through towards the Red, Blue, and Green Forks towards Fairmarket, which she knew from childhood trips to Riverrun, where her mother was from, that it was about five days from the Wood, which she took to mean by horse rather than on her calloused, nearly bleeding feet. She planned to stay in Fairmarket for a few days' time to recuperate and have a nice hot meal in before she set off again, mapping out how she would avoid the Twins, through the swamps of the Neck she was well-acquainted with, continuing on to the Barrowlands, which would then take eight days to get to Winterfell from there, though she knew it would be longer than that if she continued to go by foot.

Finally, Edlynn was alone in the world. She was sleeping in the trees, her trousers rolled up at the ankles, cloak draped over her shoulder, and she dreamt, she walked, and she felt, more intensely than she had in a long time. The dispassionate disposition she had as a married girl was irrevocably gone; instead, when she least expected it, as if in a dream itself, she only wanted to go home. But she couldn't remember where home was. She only knew it wasn't Casterly Rock, not the giant lion's head in the sky, not the bloody excess dripping from her body into a silk pouch that she buried in the grass, not the slinking, dry heat.

And, for once, she was happy.


	10. Chapter 10

_a/n: nobody really commented anything about what i asked so we're doing what i want instead and currently i'm stuck between just saying to hell with it and bringing in tormund in the next two or three chapters or because now i kind of know where i want the story to go, i'm considering just biting the bullet and making edlynn fall in love with meera reed solely because i think there is no feasible way to actually make edlynn love any man currently in this book series and i love gay people. also, at the moment, somehow with my really bad following of this timeline, we're somewhere in clash of kings and season 3 because i just threw jaime in jail for the fun of it, but tormund doesn't appear until the next book but in the same season, so at this point in time, this entire thing is the literary equivalent of a dumpster fire. so, enjoy!_

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After three weeks without a bath, Edlynn scarcely believed she looked nothing less than a true child of the forest, caked in dirt and frog blood from head to toe, as though she would ribbit rather than speak if one asked for her name. Fairmarket was, to her knowledge, only a day's walk away, and yet, from the blisters forming on her feet to the leaves permanently matted into her hair, she hardly thought she could manage to make it that far. Instead, halfway to the day's edge mark, she sat down with her things and began to make a bow and arrow from scratch the way her and Arya made practice swords from fallen trees when they were young; there were ash trees near the forest's edge and, for arrow shafts, a whole copse full of beautifully straight hazel saplings. Edlynn took off all her clothes sans her underwear and dunked herself carefully in the water of the creek nearby, enjoying the feeling before working quickly to scrub the dirt off her that had accumulated in the last few days. Much to her surprise, in a way that had never happened before in her life spent in the cold recesses of the north, her skin had grown tanned in the long journey she had undertaken, her shoulders and cheeks sunburnt and blushed. It was pretty, she thought, idly counting the freckles on her arms as she sunned herself on a large rock, her feet still skimming the water's surface.

She soon draped on her pants once again, getting to work felling a young ash, cutting out six feet of unbranched stem with her reliable knife, stripping it of its bark and, paring by paring, shaving away the white wood just like she taught Arya to do years ago, until she had a stave of her own height, and as the hours passed on, she built a small, slow fire of green wood, where she planned to dry and harden it, fashioning arrows out of the thin sticks of hazel, whittling and drying them in the same fashion, tipped with sharp nails and carefully nocked. If she could find a stupid enough bird, she could have dinner on top of plenty of feathers for the shafts; she already had an assortment of berries and wild herbs and vegetables she had found that she recognised in her bag– the seeds from the ash tree she had felled, an odd salad of chickweed, dandelion, and hawthorn leaves, wild onions, and a small pocket full of berries she was familiar with– so Edlynn safely assumed she could kill a bird with a stone of some kind instead of wasting an arrow, which is what she then proceeded to do. Shirtless, rolling the cuffs of her pants up further, sitting on the large rock, she picked a couple of flat stones out, put them on her lap, and began to chisel away at them to make arrowheads.

Of course, she had let her guard down, like a fool, but she hardly thought twice about it before coming to the conclusion that, if she did get kidnapped, it would be a lovely time to get a ride to Fairmarket instead of having to walk all the way there on her blisters. She almost started laughing at the thought before she thought better of it; there was really nothing particularly funny about it, being kidnapped, because the reality of it for her revolved around rape, assault, murder, or robbery, none of which she was prepared to handle in any way, nor did she think there was a way to actually prepare herself to begin with, even if she wasn't the most vigilant person in the world. But, still, she began humming to herself as she did the work she most enjoyed, that which required skill and patience in spades– a sweet little song she had played on the harp once, a love song called _Oh, Lay My Sweet Lass Down in the Grass,_ one of the few she enjoyed playing that used to delight Sansa when she was young.

As she was sitting on the rock, sunshine sinking into her face, Edlynn realised she would miss what they called civilized life, if only for her family whose fate she did not know; though there was something about sunlight that made things feel less horrible, it was still a horrible thought to stumble across blindly, realising that there was a chance she would never see any of them ever again, not Arya or Sansa, no Jon or Robb, neither Bran nor Rickon… She could handle never seeing her father again, for he was the one who got her into this mess to begin with, and her mother had always been hurtful with her words towards her and Arya, so there was no concern for either of them in that aspect, but she would always miss her siblings, the people she learned from so intently and the people she taught in return. And it was scary, to have little to no knowledge of what was occurring in the outside world she was so far away from, in search of her home she sought out desperately. She was lost, in a way, alone and away from the war, and her soul felt like a lost star or a lost boat, adrift at sea, never-endingly floating on, waiting for itself to beach onto land.

She was tired. At her very core, despite her happiness at doing her activities she had always enjoyed, she was desperately tired. Above all, she missed her bed at the castle, the isolation she experienced that was, in itself, a form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tranquility of the evenings… Edlynn figured this was a side effect of being accustomed to things and kept beating away at the rocks, cutting a sizable arrowhead that she shoved into her pocket. Abruptly, she decided to pick her things up, smother the fire, slide on her dirty shirt again, and leave the area swiftly, heading towards the next curve in the Red Fork to look for a place to stay for the night.

Which, in itself, was a problem. She had only a little gold in her bag, so an inn was almost entirely out of the question, and stranger's kindness only can go so far, but she was tired and her feet hurt from almost ten days walking, so she kept walking, almost bursted into tears when she felt a blister pop, and finally, eventually, came upon a village of smallfolk.

A man was the only person she saw immediately outside who wasn't staring at her, so she approached him carefully in the same manner one does an animal, stepping gently down a hill to face the man holding a bundle of wheat over his shoulder.

"Are you a woods witch?" the peasant man asked almost immediately in a tone that suggested he was merely curious, and Edlynn shrugged, palming the arrowhead in her pocket, frowning up at him.

"I'm no witch," she said quietly, almost dreamily, biting her lip. "Just a girl… Nothing more."

"Nothing less," he intonated, smiling softly.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking around the man's shoulder. His modest house– more so a hut, really– sat plainly in the grass near the small creek cut from the river Green Fork, a field of wheat cut into the grasses, with a small pigpen behind it where a very small girl giggled, sat upon the pig that galloped gleefully around. It reminded her so vividly of an incident Arya had when she was a young girl when Robb had thrusted her onto his back and began howling and running around as Theon used them for target practice and caught Arya on a tree by the seat of her pants onto a tree by his arrow. Edlynn had laughed and laughed for hours afterwards until Robb did just the same and paraded his twin around the lawn as Theon made ugly cackling noises and shot an apple off Edlynn's head.

"My name's Olyver," he said, carefully observing her face. She was tall, but he somehow managed to make her feel small. "Who're _you_?"

She thought about it. She could lie, there was no hurt in doing that. She could tell him her name was Jeyne Poole and he wouldn't know anything, not who she really was, where she was from, where she had come from, but she couldn't muster up the courage to do it. He was a farmer with a young girl and no wife and he assumed that she was a woods witch of all things; she couldn't possibly lie to such an innocent person. The smallfolk were all innocent, when it came down to it; it was the noble people who were fighting over a throne that she worried about.

Finally, she whispered, "Edlynn… My name is Edlynn."

"That's a pretty name," he said, smiling dumbly again. He pointed to the girl who had, now, fallen off the pig, smearing her entire body with mud and dung. "That's Ginger."

"Is she your daughter?"

Olyver nodded sadly, biting his lip. "Aye. Her mother died giving birth to her. Bless her heart."

A silence lulled over them and Edlynn found herself intently watching Ginger in the pigpen, her heart aching. She hoped more than anything that the girl would stay feral and gangly and muddy for the rest of her life if she so chose to be. She didn't want anything in her to change at all, just so she could have a taste of what it was like to live in a man's world. Abruptly, Olyver rocked on the balls of his feet, staring off over her shoulder in the same way she was.

"Where are you going off to?"

That was a heavy question. Where indeed? She had little idea. So, vaguely, she shrugged.

"Kingsroad," she said calmly. From there, it was a straight shot through the Neck to Winterfell.

"And from there, where are you going?"

She shrugged again. Though Winterfell had been the first thing to pop into her mind, she didn't want to go there when there was nothing left of it but ghosts and her younger brothers, maybe her disapproving mother with her permanent scowl, maybe the godswood if it hadn't been burnt to the ground yet… So, very simply, she said, "North."

After another beat of silence, he asked, "Do you want to stay the night here?"

"If you'd let me. I can help around the house, if you would like," she offered meagerly, feeling as though she looked as pathetic as she felt.

"Oh, as long as you clean Ginny up and make dinner for us all, I don't see any need to," Olyver assured her. "As long as you promise me I'm not making a grave mistake here, you're free to stay with us. If Ginny likes you, I'd offer you to stay for a longer spell if you'd like."

She nodded, and went to the pigpen to retrieve Ginger from the back; she dragged the little girl inside and went outside to get water for a bath. After Edlynn scrubbed the mud off her, she introduced herself and began to bond with the little crazy girl whose favourite pass-times were fishing and digging holes in the grass to bury fun things for later, and together, she forced Ginger to help her make a dinner of a rudimentary soup and a hot loaf of bread with butter. Edlynn, by now, assumed her language to express love was through food; she made everything with care and kind instruction to the little girl as though she were her mother instead, and made her set the table neatly so her father, who seemed to work very, very hard for both of them, could have a nice dinner waiting for him. Idly, Edlynn thought, in a better world where Jaime wasn't a pig and she didn't resent him deeply, she could have had a happy domestic life in some ways if he let her be her own person in the way that Olyver, having only known Edlynn for the better half of three hours, did not care at all what she did as long as she didn't have ill intent.

They ate, she slept on a cot in Ginger's small bedroom, and in the morning, Olyver helped her dress her broken blisters, gave her the promise that she could always stay with them if she wanted in the future, and let her go on her way with the loaf of bread she had made the night before and a water skin. And every time Edlynn remembered this incident, she wanted to cry so desperately; she didn't know if either of them were still alive, but it made her weep at the thought of having a loving, gentle husband who let her do as she pleased and a rambunctious daughter who loved playing with pigs more than learning how to recite pleasantries to the court. But, as it seemed, she could never have that, not unless Jaime magically escaped the riverlands and now wanted to be kind to her and ask first if she wanted to have a baby before planting one anyways.

"Ginny," Edlynn murmured quietly, bending over at the waist to be at eye level. "There's a creek half a day's walk down from here westward, teeming with fish. I think you and your papa might have a delightful time there one day, you know?"

And she nodded like she did, and Edlynn smiled because she knew a lot more than she realised, and she left soon after. Once she got to Fairmarket, the thought wouldn't leave her mind. She slept there for a day at an inn she could afford that was dingy and dirty, but comfortable nonetheless, and that was the night her dreams began again. Before, they had been infrequent and somewhat prophetic to the point Edlynn thought they must be premonitions that arose only when something heinous could happen unless she made the conscious choice to change her unconscious visions; now, after this image of Ginny, fishing and running through the mud, something within her had shifted, and as nights passed with increasingly vague yet intense dreams, Edlynn left for the Kingsroad as promised, though she stayed away from the main track out of caution and kept to herself, quiet and doing nothing more but walking and sleeping in the hollows of trees or the branches.

Eventually, she kept north, towards the familiar bogs of the Neck. In her dreams, every night for the last week, an ephemeral nymph paints the sky with her slender fingers, reaching timidly towards Edlynn as she sent the dewdrops to slumber; then, the dew forms a mist, and they walked slowly, wrapped in a tender embrace, her head on Edlynn's chest, through the curtain of pearls framing a tranquil landscape, sunlight cutting through the brush of trees crowning them ahead, making everything around them shimmer and falter before her very eyes. Mouth to mouth, she kissed the nymph like she had done it a million times, soft and delicate and familiar, and she tastes of mint and blackberries, and eventually, she's devoured by insects, yet the ghost of her still haunts the swamp through the light, the glow, the heart borne of violence… And something very ancient within Edlynn, full of ghosts and history, welled up, and she knew that the place she saw in her dreams, a forest fenn, was where she needed to go, whether that was forever or only for a short time until the Gods decided she was unworthy of the nymph's touch.

So, she continued through the Neck, towards the swamps where she had once stumbled through the water and lathered mud on her sister's rashes on the way to King's Landing what felt like years ago. But now, Edlynn was alone, going by foot and licking her own wounds, kissing the image of the nymph's face in the pond, waving her nude arms at the little crannog villages going by, learning the last bright routes as the survivor of something inhospitable enough that the desolate swamps ruled by the crannogmen were seeming more and more appealing. According to legend, the crannogmen were tiny people who voraciously ate frogs and dipped their arrows and rudimentary blades in poison, known for being talented in hunting and fighting, whom Edlynn had read about a number of times throughout the years and thought, in her best interests, as they were still pledged to House Stark, they would allow her to build a home in the comfort of a harsh, unforgiving terrain as long as she kept her nose out of any other house's business. Though it would take six days at the very least to get to Moat Cailin, where House Reed sat, it was her best bet at the moment; maybe if she played it right, she could enlist the help of his men to help her build something lovely from scratch, look over any human oversights and leave without another word so she could learn to live on her own, without anyone, without the tempestuous goddess that continued to haunt her mind, her dreams, the forest fenns, the shadows in the corner of her eyes…

That night, when she slept, Edlynn listened to her voice for the first time. _Why do you keep your tenderness to yourself?_ she asked quietly in a dreamy, yet strangely happy voice. _It must be terribly lonely being misguided. It's horrible you have had to deal with the men who violently breed but it's no use making yourself suffer over it. Don't eat your words– tell them to me. I will always listen…_


	11. Chapter 11

_a/n: to clarify, if it matters, olyver and ginger are really unimportant, i just wanted to give a good comparison to what edlynn would, in any case, have dreamed about her life with jaime, only to have it completely ruined when the charms he put on faded and his abandonment of her at casterly rock. anyways, also, i sped things up solely because i kind of have an idea of where i'm taking this now and that requires me to push this up towards like… mid-storm of swords because i needed to bring arya in here for, well, no reason besides the fact i wanted to. i also forgot to mention this but my general faceclaim for edlynn is the model mckenna hellam, if anyone cares to have a visual for reference. anyways, review please! i've been anxiously awaiting any feedback for a while now._

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Her stitches weren't crooked, but the situation at hand felt almost the exact same.

That same inkling of dread was following her as time went on and their footsteps fell into rhythm with one another; for a moment, Arya felt as though Septa Mordane was about to come over her shoulder and ridicule her in front of her sisters and that awful girl Jeyne Poole, and almost chastised herself aloud at the stupidity of that thought. As time progressed, she felt silly for feeling humiliation burn through her as though Edlynn had sighed plainly and Sansa had began to giggle at her inability to be a lady in any sense, but rather, instead, stood Sandor Clegane, trailing only slightly behind her as they walked through the Neck, awaiting either another doomed ending or the face of her eldest sister. Who, if all went as planned, would take Arya off Sandor's hands and leave him to drink himself into a stupor and (hopefully) get peacefully killed off by some bandits before any of the men warring for the throne could do it themselves.

That was it– it was the knowledge that there was something embarrassing or shameful that could happen if she ended up being wrong and all the work she put into something was for naught. And instead of Edlynn's barely contained disappointment or Sansa's girlish, mocking laughter, it would be the Hound's sword at her throat, enraged that she had lead him on a wild chase into the no-man's land that was the Neck. But it wasn't entirely her fault if Edlynn wasn't there; Sandor had been the one who refused to go all the way south again to the Vale to drop her off with her Aunt Lysa, after he had been the reason they weren't involved in the massacre that was the Red Wedding, the unfortunate mistake of her mother and brother. Of course, Arya had no way of knowing where Edlynn was; the Lannisters had put a bounty up for her safe release back to Casterly Rock after disappearing months ago, but it had yet to be claimed and most were under the impression she was either dead or in the North.

But the problem with that was, from the Twins, from passing bandits on the Kingsroad, Arya and Sandor both witnessed two men in an inn talk of a mysterious woman they both remembered passing through there.

 _A woman like that is not ashamed to die. Aye_ , one of them said before swallowing a gulp of ale. _She came through the village half a year ago waving her bare arms and men are too craven to go through the way she went. In the heart of the forest, they say around town that she formed herself into a sorceress of two worlds, a greenseer, one who will help anyone who makes it to her keep in the swamp…_

 _All lies, I'm sure,_ the other said after a long pause. Arya stared at the side of Sandor's burnt face as he drank calmly, his face not giving away a single thought. _You know that old phrase: 'only one in a thousand is born a skinchanger, and only one skinchanger in a thousand is born a greenseer.' Besides, if you're so uncowardly, why don't you go visit her?_

 _I never said I wasn't a craven. Maybe if I get more pints in me, I'll have the gall to reconsider!_

And, in true Sandor Clegane fashion, he had no hesitation interrogating the men soon after, asking for directions to the way she allegedly lived; the men also told him that she was tall, scrawny, with black hair and freckles, and never gave them her name, to which Arya immediately realised they had, by some stroke of luck, stumbled upon Edlynn, whom she had presumed was killed long ago. The thought that her eldest sister was even considered to be a woods witch was hilarious to Arya, when in truth, Edlynn was probably playing her harp melodramatically and eating berries in a hammock out in the middle of the treacherous hellscape that was the Neck, underlying currents of quicksand and poison all throughout, which, in a way, suited her, funnily enough. Something she probably much preferred rather than, say, making potions and telling the future in ominous riddles.

At the crossroads where they were directed, almost a day and a half north, a weirwood stood mighty, its branches twisted and gnarled heavenward, and Arya instructed Sandor to follow her to the left, _the road less travelled_ as Edlynn used to say _._ It felt like forever ago that she had even thought about her eldest sister, in the midst of her brothers, mother, and father dying; the last time she had seen her older sister was the day of the wedding, where Edlynn looked miserable for hours upon hours, drinking herself into a stupor to numb the reality of what she had been forced into. She had to look away when the bedding ceremony began and couldn't force herself to stay any longer afterwards. Jaime Lannister was a cruel man and if Arya didn't know any better, she would have put him on the list for the sole reason he had hurt her sister to the point she had exiled herself into what Arya could only call the great wilderness, away from the society and civilization that had enforced this marriage to begin with. She could only hope that Edlynn was, as she always had been, religious enough to find a way to let the Gods free her from that union, that awful, awful union…

A shallow trail that wasn't truly a trail led them through the wood, a slightly flattened crevice in the underbrush that must have been created by either man or beast, and as they roamed further into the woods, there came the outline of smoke billowing up into the sky, and almost in an instant, Arya pushed forward, rushed with excitement over the thought that she had finally found her sister once again. There, in a clearing atop a small island in the middle of the swamp was a humble house made of stones, mud, and bark, created out of both love and raw necessity, almost hidden by an eclipse of half-drowned trees covered in fungus if it weren't for a clothesline draping overhead, a quilt dyed a dull yellow swaying lightly in the breeze, doing a little dance as though Edlynn had strung it up as a new flag for her and her alone, House Edlynn, first of her name, lord of this dingy house in the middle of the Neck. In front of Arya, a goose paraded itself on the makeshift cobblestone path, honking delightfully as it meandered around the back. It surely must have been Edlynn's home, Arya thought, for Edlynn was the only person in her right mind who would willingly keep a goose as a pet.

Arya, with the Hound looming over her shoulder, followed the goose towards the front door, which was not as much of a door as it was a large piece of bark loosely tied to the rock wall with twine. She knocked carefully on the bark door and when there was no answer, she carefully opened it, pushing forward.

There stood a frail, yet familiar figure with hand-sewn clothing and a linen apron tied around her thin waist, soot stained into the folds; her hair was cut very short, almost shorter than Arya's, and at first, she thought she might have stumbled into the wrong hut, but she realised soon this must have been Edlynn for the sole fact that this abode could only belong to her eccentric sister. The tiny house had a very warm kitchen, handmade candles and facets lining the room, crocheted rugs and a lichen-stained tablecloth, coarse cups tempered with grit and burnished to a shiny finish, all characteristics that fit well with the girl she knew well as purely of her sister: not quite ugly, but still vaguely dirty and antiquated. Aside from the fact that, when she turned to the side, Arya saw the very distinct, very beautiful hook of her nose and the freckle on her upper lip, and knew it was Edlynn herself, stirring a large clay pot on the makeshift stove, not turning fully around. Finally, after a long pause, she spoke plainly, "Hello, Arya, Sandor. I've been expecting you."

Outside the small window behind her, exactly ten crows sat complacently on the clothesline outside, making the yellow flag-blanket jump, cawing quietly and staring at Arya. Silently, Edlynn reached down to gulp a mouthful of bitter nettle tea out of one of the gritty clay cups, though unlike the times her younger sister saw her do this before, her face did not curl into a grimace.

"What happened to your hair?" was the only thing Arya could think of asking. It sounded stupid as soon as the words exited her mouth, and she winced, but Edlynn hardly seemed fazed.

"Cutting long hair is… An important, symbolic event. Like cutting off so many layers of oppressive structures in a single action. Long hair was a symbol for how I fit into society, and removing that visible symbol of traditional femininity was both liberating and terrifying. You've always had short hair, but for me, after being forced into a number of caste-related womanly responsibilities, I did it as a final goodbye to the outside world. Did you know that you are the first person I've talked to in seven months time?"

Ah, of course. Edlynn, just as cryptic, wild, and forbidding as ever. Sandor, still standing outside, crouched to enter the hut behind Arya, staring down at Edlynn with a scowl.

"That's all delightful, but the real question is, are you able to take this heathen off my hands–"

"No, you oaf," Edlynn snapped almost immediately. "I left Casterly Rock to get away from men telling me what to do, and I'm afraid you aren't going to be the one to do so again. Unless Arya tells me this is where she would like to stay, then I'm afraid you're going to have to go back down to the Vale of Arryn and ask Aunt Lysa that question instead. That woman is a repulsive shrew and it would be in your best interest to let Arya make up her own mind rather than carting her off to every reach of the land in some hope someone somewhere will take her, as though she won't run off anyways. You're a fool and I'll be damned before I let you scare me into doing your bidding."

Arya gaped at her. For a second, so did the Hound. Silently, she waved towards a small kitchen table with a single chair.

"Please, take a seat. I was just fixing myself dinner."

Arya looked at the Hound, who begrudgingly sat in the chair that was comically too small for him. Her older sister sighed, leaning against the wall.

"So is that why you came all the way here? To ask forcefully to take my sister in?"

Sandor shrugged, chain clanking.

"He said if neither you nor Aunt Lysa took me, he would use me as ransom to Great Uncle Brynden," Arya added, watching as the Hound, full of barely contained annoyance and rage, rolled his eyes to stare at her before they rolled back to stare at Edlynn, who was surprisingly unafraid of him, not unlike their first encounter after the tourney. Quietly, Edlynn frowned, her face otherwise neutral.

"Why would you do such a thing?" she asked the Hound, who, once again, still angry, shrugged.

"She's a kid. Needs family to watch her."

The statement, strangely, was tender; surprisingly so to Arya, who had been mistreated this entire journey.

"How did you know he was going to take me to Aunt Lysa in the first place?" Arya broke in, the thought finally coming into her head too long after it had happened. Edlynn snorted a little bit, sipping again at her tea.

"According to legend," Edlynn murmured over her chipped cup. "crannogmen are very superstitious and for good reason: they have prophetic green dreams and infrequently, there are people who can put their minds inside the bodies of animals and use their vessels as their own and people who can look through the eyes of the weirwoods and see the truth the lies beneath the world, the past and present and the future… Lord Reed assumed I was one of those people when I recognised his daughter from my dreams and informed his son, who has green dreams, of his discovery and personally helped me build this house many months ago with some of the other swamp-dwellers under his rule.

"In truth, I have had dreams of the future and, as I'm sure you've experienced as you entered Nymeria in your dreams many moons ago, I brought Snug here by entering her mind and leading her here. I cannot master all aspects of this without contacting the very last greenseer known to man, and as Bran himself is already on that journey with Lord Reed's children, it serves no purpose to me to do so myself. I'm happy here in my home, and I don't see a reason to go anywhere else."

Just as she promised, the head of the gigantic direwolf peaked into the hut, ears perked and a familiar black ribbon tied around its neck like a collar, holding a dead squirrel in its mouth by the tail.

"How do you know about the dreams?" Arya began, but received no answer as Edlynn walked to collect the carcass from Snug's mouth, petting the large beast gently on its massive head.

"I know because I have the same dreams, only I've lived them out in real time. I brought Snug here, and you know what else I can do?" She got a playful, familiar expression on, and Arya almost smiled. "I can… Soar like a crow! Sneak like a mouse! Honk like the stupid goose outside!"

"Is the goose your pet?" Arya asked with a wide, toothy grin.

"Of course not, that thing won't listen to a word I say unless I enter its own little awful body. I only keep it around for practice and so I can have eggs every once in a while."

"What's there to eat around here anyways? Besides goose eggs, of course."

"You'd be surprised, sister. There's plenty from the land, and what you cannot eat, you can use in dyestuff. Not to mention the fact that Snug is a great squirrel hunter, and the swamp is plentiful in fish and frogs, there are plants and things I have never seen in my life that I've found are very useful in other facets. Right now, I've got a soup of rabbit, tubers, and wild rice, but there's a cloudberry bush right outside to the left if you want. Watch out for mosquitos, though, I will warn… I've been trying to go frog hunting farther out and bringing them back here to breed so the swarms will get smaller and eventually I can have some big, fat frogs for dinner, but it's proving to be difficult."

"Does that mean you're keeping her?" Sandor asked blandly from the kitchen table.

"Well, Arya, would you like to stay with me for a spell?" Edlynn asked in return, and Arya nodded, the hint of a smile still etched onto her face. "That settles that, then. You can see yourself out, Sandor. Do try not to get lost on the way back to Kingsroad, I would hate to find a bag of bones out in the mire again."

"Again?" Arya asked excitedly. "You _must_ tell me what happened!"

"Of course, sweet one. We have all the time in the world…"


	12. Chapter 12

_a/n: victoria-pontmercy– for the sole fact i don't know how i would weasel edlynn into the red wedding, i kind of skipped over that towards, well, now, a few days after the red wedding. and yes, i have some plans for the meeting again with jaime in the future, which will be interesting to say the least, i think. thank you for the questions! anyways, i'm skipping around a little bit with this, just because i really wanted a little arya-edlynn reunion and in that time we're gonna get into a little bit of meera-edlynn action. once again, follow and like and whatever. enjoy this absolute nonsense i keep spoon-feeding all of you. also, once again, i am so sorry i am shitty at updating, but inspiration comes and goes and it's just a really awful thing._

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The precocious children, parentless and isolated, sat in Edlynn's house and home quietly, not wanting in particular to start up conversation again with Sandor gone and Arya left alone once again. Edlynn, from across the tiny room, looked her sister up and down, from her dirty hair to her shit-covered boots, and felt endeared; mystery, marvel, and prodigy were the Stark sisters in that order, and Arya, endlessly moving, turning and twisting, began to shake her shit-covered boot, breaking Edlynn out of her mild transe.

"Are you hungry, then?" Edlynn asked, standing and blinking rapidly.

Outside the panels above the sink, the grass below the willow tree is curled with earthworms. Edlynn watched it without thinking to listen to Arya, spasms of violets rising above the mud, above the quicksand dunes curdling with bones and weeds and birds and ancients, enraptured by the world around them, the world that would move on regardless of either of them, regardless of their vengeance or their love or their suffering. Nothing was out to get her and yet, every time she stared out the window, she felt as though someone was going to hurt her and the world. It was a permanent sinking feeling in her gut she had been having lately, like something awful had happened and was still happening and she had no idea what it could have been. The crows on the clothesline cawed and cackled and dispersed as she slammed the window closed with a small sob.

"Are you alright, Edlynn?" Arya asked carefully, and her eldest sister gave a small sigh.

"Don't worry," was all she said, filling a bowl with soup. The bogs made a beautiful place to grow rice, she learned, and it was plentiful as it was. With a wooden spoon, Arya began scarfing the food down like a rabid dog,

"Edlynn? Could I ask… How did you get out here?" Arya asked, almost done already with her soup and looking towards her for seconds. Her sister obliged, ladling in more and helping herself to a bowl as well.

"In a manner of speaking, I'm dead to the world," Edlynn said carefully, staring at the floor. "I left Casterly Rock in the dead of night after getting rid of my baby. I did not speak to anyone for days on end and I left by horse until the horse was stolen by a bandit and I roamed by myself until I began having dreams that told me to come to the Neck. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when I learned you would come see me. I didn't know you were even alive. I don't know anything, besides the fact that Jaime has been fighting a war against Robb in the North and I was virtually a hostage to my own husband. Some marriage that was."

"You said earlier that the Reeds helped you build your house… How did you manage that? Aren't the crannogmen horrible little people?" Arya grinned a little bit, prepared for Edlynn's elaborate story, but it never came. Soon after the question arose, Edlynn felt the sensations, saw Meera surge like yeast dough through the doorway as soon as she caught a glimpse of Edlynn's face.

 _I know you,_ Meera had murmured, staring up at Edlynn with wonderment.

Calmly, the other girl gave a soft smile, unfazed by her excitement. _I'm afraid we've never met before… Not in this place, anyways._

Lord Reed stared at both of them incredulously, _How do you know one another?_

 _In a dream,_ Meera said in awe. Her voice was little more than a whisper and yet, Edlynn had heard it like it was a shriek right in her ear, clear and calm yet with a hysterical edge that made Edlynn think she hardly believed it herself.

 _How did you meet in a dream?_

Edlynn could see it playing in front of her eyes again, the dreams she had for months that had lead her to Moat Cailin, the nymph in her misty haze, kissing her lips, her sweet voice curling around her words just like Meera, to the finest detail.

 _Will you always listen?_ Edlynn had asked. Outside, a clot of crickets frisked and tittered in one confusing jumble of noise. Meera's loyalty hovered over her head and Edlynn closed her eyes. The first dream–the hot air on her skin, the lion's head in the rock, the baby at her breast–played back in her head, and silently, she wondered if it was possible to see the dreams and take them as warnings as she had done many, many moons ago. When she opened her eyes, Meera was still there, staring at her with a strange look in her eyes that she couldn't understand. It felt grossly personal, like a secret between the both of them that Meera's father had just witnessed without them wanting him to.

 _Of course I will. Of course…_

"Edlynn?" Arya called again, and she frowned at the table, blinking again.

"I walked to Moat Cailin, in some effort to ask for pity or something of the same colour. And, when Lord Reed was about to cast me out with an arrow to my spine, his daughter walked by, Meera, and saw me. As it turned out, she had green dreams much like me, and somehow, we had seen each other in that realm of unconsciousness. Her father felt that I was important much like he felt his children were, and allowed the use of a dozen of his men to build this place."

Arya sat in abject silence for a beat of time, watching her sister hunch over her bowl and eat plaintively, thoughtfully, as she did everything in her life. Carefully and with effort, like she was afraid of what would happen next; unfit to guide perfectly, Edlynn guided without question, silent in her work in between dreams but guarding Arya under lock and key, as family does. In that moment, she thought her sister to be the closest replacement she had to their father, someone curiously filled to the brim with obligations that she dutifully attended to if they didn't infringe upon her independence, her freedoms she had fought to the tooth for, rubbing down to the bone against whatever hardships she had endured at Casterly Rock against a tyrant of a man who had very obviously hurt Edlynn, from the way she had trembled when she talked.

The eldest child, restless, fidgeted with the spoon, skimming the remaining liquid off the bottom into her frowning mouth. Carefully, Edlynn stood, taking their bowls and moving towards whence she came. Bending over the sink, she paused, allowing Arya to estimate how much weight it seemed she had lost since the last time she had seen her, pretty and pink-faced at the wedding, in a drunken confusion, crying, crying, crying…

"How did you find me?" Edlynn asked, her voice cracking as though she were about to cry. Arya watched Edlynn fuss and fumble over the bowls, setting them into a makeshift sink tat sat plainly, a bucket of water sitting inside it with a rag that must have once been a shirt strewn to the side. A holy creature, nestled with her clay and her spindle-fingers, the notches of her spine bulging through linens like weirwood trees, and Arya could almost see her screaming when men wretched off her dress before the bedding. She saw Edlynn and saw her crying at the wedding, saw her crying in the carriage with crying Arya to her chest, saw her crying over dead birds in the forest, saw her crying over Sansa being cruel to her, saw her crying in the library over nothing, and something within her welled up and screamed just as loud.

"Some men in an inn were talking about a woods witch," Arya said lamely. "Sandor got curious and interrogated them and it sounded like you. Only you of all people would act so mystical and horrifying."

Grey, glued to her dream, Edlynn gave a soft, dumb laugh.

"A woods witch… Out of all things…" she trailed off. Silence lulled between the two as Edlynn cleaned bones and clay pots with only the slightest of sloshing, barely noticeable movements.

After a long moment, Arya murmured, "I can't stay here for long."

Edlynn was silent, but she nodded anyways, refusing to turn around.

"I thought about going to Saltpans and travelling from there…" She trailed off.

"White Harbor would be closer," Edlynn snorted into the bucket. "You didn't think this out that thoroughly, did you?"

"Have you been there before?"

"No, but I know where it is. It would be a long journey to take to a place you don't know if you went by yourself…"

"Could you bring me there?" Arya asked quietly, afraid of the answer.

"Of course," Edlynn responded almost immediately, much to her sister's surprise. "As Sandor said, you need family. Everybody needs somebody. You're my somebody, and I would hope I am yours."

"Of course," Arya repeated in the same way.

"And in that way, I would never just let you go off on your own. As long as you're with someone who I know won't hurt you, then I think you should be allowed to go wherever you want as you please. You're a child now, but eventually, you will be old enough and big enough to go off by yourself, off into the great unknown, just like I've tried doing, but until then, I need to know you're safe… I'm glad I dreamt of you, Arya. I'm glad you came here."

She paused for a moment, faltering, "If you ever come back and visit me again, can you bring me a book? I would start to write myself, but I left my journal at Casterly Rock."

"Of course…" Arya repeated, "Of course…"

"Of course," Edlynn said with a smile.

Meera's voice reverberated in her head with the same words, only louder, pulsating. And then, in a whisper, just as she had done that day before she had left to the North, Meera calmly repeated herself, _Our lives are strands between the miracles of birth and death. I have been made to love you just as you were made to love me. Your first house will be built here, and the second will be built inside me._

Attached to the tiny kitchen was a small bedroom, a cot made of straw that reminded her of the bale of hay she had slept on that fateful night at Winterfell after the feast Jon had stormed out of, a thick blanket overtop and the dog's quilt on the floor next to it. Arya laughed slightly and assumed her place on the floor as Snug trotted into the room and sat with her butt on Arya's leg, which the younger girl giggled about before falling asleep, the dog's gigantic head slumping on the floor as she fell asleep beside her. Edlynn got ready for bed by taking off her linens and things and walked carefully outside so Arya didn't stir.

On the stairs, she stood in the breeze, letting it wash over her, absolving her of her guilt. Every time she blinked, she saw the fragment of flesh that had been her baby, buried in the dirt outside the castle; she saw Jaime on top of her and the rolling, sloshing noise her brain had made when she realised her father was going to die and the heat that welled in her cheeks when she had to tell Tywin of her pregnancy and the shame that had pulsed through her every waking moment she had to become accustomed to the mortifying ordeal of being known to others aside from herself. There was no sound around her, only the redundant croak of frogs, the stir of shrubs as the perfumed temperature embalmed the flora in a thick nighttime dew, and the wind ghosted across her mouth, like a subtle kiss that she assumed was from a god herself. Not Meera, that wasn't a sign she normally received from the girl.

Meera had kissed her furiously and with more love than Edlynn had ever felt in her lifetime that day, something real and awful and confusing and threatening that made her press her palms against Meera's chest just to grapple with the new feeling. Her and her brother were going North and she knew it would be a long time before she returned home; as soon as Edlynn had began to walk up the steps to the Gatehouse Tower, where Lord Reed had allowed her to stay in the meantime as they would build her house, Meera had cornered her from all sides and above, the drained sun falling overhead through the corners of the high, drafty ceiling cloaked with lichen, illuminating her face in a golden glow. Meera's eyes were green, she learned. Slim, small, wearing lambskin breeches and a jerkin, something familiar yet utterly foreign, it was like looking into a distorted mirror, true yet wavering.

 _What's your name?_ she asked, and it occurred to Edlynn that she hadn't known who she was before that. Now, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Meera, Meera, Meera.

 _Edlynn Stark,_ she had said, just as calm as she had been before despite how close the other girl was standing. Much like that night, the air was asleep, the light breeze the only thing alive, rustling down the corridor in the sagging light. Paralysed or at peace, Meera smiled and said her name. Edlynn repeated it a few times, her tongue curling around the syllables.

 _My brother and I are leaving soon,_ she said softly, gnawing at her lip. _I don't know when I'll see you next._

 _I can hope to dream of it,_ Edlynn whispered. _Maybe then I can tell you._

For a moment, they forgot where they were. Edlynn had died months ago but had somehow been resurrected by the power of something she didn't understand. It had hurt her legs to push the way of fate that way. The sun turned kind and stayed afloat for a minute longer. And suddenly, Meera had lurched upwards and kissed her right on the mouth. For a second, Edlynn thought of Jaime and how awful she had felt right after he had left her alone in the corridor much like the one she was in now and she felt scared and nervous again, like the little girl in King's Landing with eyes too big for her head.

And then, Meera reached up and wrapped Edlynn in a hug. She had never been hugged by someone so tightly in her life that she felt all the fears wash away in a single fluid motion. And suddenly, Edlynn was kissing her back. Long, slow, deliberate. Something was alive that used to have been dead and it was raging and coursing and Edlynn let her mouth open willingly with a small moan she had saved for just the right occasion. Meera tasted like mint leaves and home, and Edlynn felt herself cup the girl's cheeks, kissing her away for what felt like only seconds when she knew it must have been a long, lingering time, her back pressed against the stone wall. After a very long time, until the sun was still barely hanging on, Meera pulled away, a bright smile on her delighted face.

 _I'm glad you did that,_ she said without any embellishment. Edlynn grinned right back.

 _I'm glad I did too._

 _I'll see you one day again, Edlynn._

 _Hopefully it will be like this and not just in my head._

 _Hopefully… Hopefully…_


End file.
